07/06/20 Mets Summer camp at Citifield Queens NY View of Citifield today Neil Miller The New York Extra/TheNYExtra.com
Major League Baseball announced the 60 game schedule the teams will embark upon in late July and from the looks of it, the Met schedule is a very tough one taking on some of the best teams in the sport.
They will open up at home taking on the Braves at Citifield on Friday July 24th which will be the opener of a 3 game series with the defending NL East champions, Of course, the Braves will be missing 2 big bats in their lineup-Freddie Freeman and Nick Markakis.
The CoVID world makes analyzing a schedule very difficult because positive cases could crop up in a hurry and it could decimate a team or diminish the talents of their opponents. After that Brave series, The Mets have a four game home and home series with the Boston Red Sox and then they are off on a 6 game road trip to Atlanta and then to the nation’s capital to take on the World Champion Nationals. Their six games with the Yankees will be on back to back weekends on August 21 through the 23rd at CitiField and then on August 28th through the 30th in the Bronx.
For every team in baseball getting off to a hot start will be imperative to earn a playoff start but for the Mets it is even MORE important. That is because the last 2 weeks of the season’s schedule pits them against the Phils, Braves and Rays followed by a 4 game season ending series in Washington versus the Nationals.
It will be tough to catch teams in the standings with that schedule and should the Mets be in the lead for a playoff spot it could make it difficult to fend off contenders for those spots.
The only crazy thing on this schedule is on 9-11 the Mets play the Jays in Toronto. It hardly seems right that on that day the Mets play out of the country. I would think that could have been handled better than that.
Overall, this is a very tough schedule which seems book ended with the toughest games coming at the beginning and the end of the season. A challenging road to the playoffs but if the Mets make the post-season party it will without a doubt be a well earned effort.