It’s been quite the second half ride for the Metropolitans, who looked dead in the water in mid-August after losing two straight to these same San Francisco Giants and falling to 60-62 on the year, five-and-a-half games out of the second National League Wild Card spot.

With a roster that continued to get battered by injuries and occupied by more Triple-A players by the day, the Mets stunningly roared to a 27-13 finish, surpassing both the Cardinals and the Giants to claim to top Wild Card seed in the regular season’s final weekend.

Despite their easy schedule, what this Mets team did was nothing short of remarkable considering the players they were leaning on in key games down the stretch such as Seth Lugo, Robert Gsellman and T.J. Rivera. It’s a feat that these players should be proud of, and yet this magical ride over a month in the making could come to a crashing halt after just one game.

Last year the Mets went through “the gauntlet,” as manager Terry Collins has described, facing off against Clayton Kershaw, Zack Greinke, Jake Arrieta, Jon Lester and Johnny Cueto during their 2015 postseason run. But they’ve never come up against the likes of Postseason Superstar Madison Bumgarner.

At age 27, the left-handed hurler has already claimed three World Series championships, an NLCS MVP, World Series MVP and is widely considered as one of the greatest postseason pitchers the sport has ever seen.

In 14 career postseason appearances (12 starts), Bumgarner has dominated with a minuscule 2.14 ERA. When the stakes are higher, MadBum gets even better: an 0.25 ERA in five career World Series appearances. Over his last eight postseason appearances, he’s been even better as he’s gone 5-1 with a 1.06 ERA over 59.7 innings pitched.

Sure, his past postseason success doesn’t necessarily indicate that he will continue to tear through his October opponents like they’re tissue paper, but it certainly doesn’t hurt to have three dominant postseason runs in your back pocket.

While the Mets did prevail in a winner-take-all game against the Dodgers in the NLDS last season, the one-game elimination Wild Card Game is one situation New York has not been in before. Bumgarner, however, pitched one of the greatest games of his career in the 2014 Wild Card Game on the road in Pittsburgh as he threw a four-hit shutout, striking out 10 batters while walking none.

Overall in his career, Bumgarner has fared extremely well against the Mets, as he’s gone 5-0 with a 1.80 ERA in six career regular season starts against New York. At Citi Field, where he’ll be taking the mound on Wednesday night, he’s been even better as he’s 4-0 with a microscopic 0.62 ERA in four career starts.

The bad news is, yeah, that’s a lot of history going against the Mets in Bumgarner’s favor. And the Mets are poorly equipped to handle a southpaw, especially one as good as this guy. Their .755 OPS against left-handers this season was fine, but two of the team’s best performers against lefties–Wilmer Flores (1.093 OPS) and Neil Walker (1.001 OPS)–won’t be available in this do-or-die game.

The good news? Anything can happen over one game. Also they’ve got a long-haired hurler of their own in Noah Syndergaard who, of course, who threw eight innings of shutout ball the last time he saw the Giants this season.

While the Mets struggled against Bumgarner this season, they did manage to do one thing well and that’s force him to throw a lot of pitches. In his first start against them at Citi Field this past May, Bumgarner shut New York out, but they did manage to get him out of the game after six innings and 112 pitches. In his second start, another win in San Francisco, the Mets did significantly more damage as they scored four runs against the Giants ace—all coming off the bat of Unexpected Met No. 7 Justin Ruggiano, whose shoulder injury has kept him out of the playoffs—and once again forced him out of the game early after throwing 89 pitches over five innings.

“He’s real good, but like all great pitchers, he throws strikes,” Terry Collins said at the Mets team workout on Tuesday. “So the one thing you’ve got to go up with a little bit of a plan, try to get something you can handle, and don’t miss it. Don’t foul it off, put it in play … He goes after everybody he ever faces, and therefore you better be ready, because you’re going to get something to hit, and you better do some damage with it.”

The Mets will have to do what few have done over the last seven years, and that’s get to Madison Bumgarner when it matters most. If they can lay off balls out of the zone, hit the few mistakes he does make and force his pitch count to rise early, at the very least they’ll have a shot.

Photo Credit: Neville E. Guard-USA TODAY Sports

The Mets are thoroughly mediocre – scoring 509 runs, giving up 507, and with a .508 winning percentage heading into Monday night – yet there were so many expectations coming into this season, the parallels between 2015 and 1984/85 feeling perfectly valid at the time. They’re going to put it all together this time. Last year was a precursor to something more. You first have to learn where you’re going in order to reach the mountaintop. The pitching can only get better; the lineup now knows how to deliver hits consistently. And when you’re striking out that many opposing batters, who cares about your porous defense? Oh, the things we tell ourselves.

The book is certainly not completely written on this particular iteration of the team, but I don’t suspect the 2016 Mets are going to be dismissed as a lost opportunity. The National League is deep and talented this year, certainly far more than the American League. It seems viable that any one of five NL teams could win the World Series, and the Cubs – the Cubs! – feel like the overwhelming favorite at this point. So sure, you can see that they haven’t posted a winning season since April and cringe at all the winnable games tossed aside, but even if everything had gone swimmingly for the Mets in 2016, the deep end of the pool feels mighty crowded at the moment. Nothing still would be certain.

Besides, the way this season has been far from ideal. The offense, aside from their surprising ability to mash taters with increased regularity, has been dismal. No speed, no consistency, no faith. The defensive chances have been limited, which was the plan with this pitching staff, but anyone who say they have a firm idea of, say, a majority of who the Mets will be fielding on Opening Day 2017 is selling something you shouldn’t buy. There are future stars on this roster, yes, but their development has either been stymied or, at worst, seen regression. The trade for Jay Bruce was misguided, the signing of Jose Reyes was embarrassing, and the demotion of Michael Conforto has been nothing short of prospect malpractice. And though David Wright, Lucas Duda, Matt Harvey, and Zack Wheeler were all expected to be on the field and contributing at this point in the season, their collective futures are instead mysteries for another day.

And yet, there is so much to be hopeful for in 2017. Noah Syndergaard, Jacob deGrom, and Steven Matz could easily be the best 1-2-3 of any staff in the NL East. There’s a decent chance Harvey and/or Wheeler start to resemble their capable former selves. There’s every reason to expect Conforto can thrive in a post-Terry Collins world, and there’s Brandon Nimmo, Amed Rosario, Dominic Smith, and Gavin Cecchini following close behind him in the pipeline. If Yoenis Cespedes sticks around – and perhaps depending on a new contract for Neil Walker – the Mets will have the early makings of a lineup core that could outproduce this season’s meager middlemen. Point is, the Mets have room to grow, their ceiling still not even within arm’s reach. What do the Mets end up with this season, 85 wins? It’s not hard to see the jump to 90 or 92 next season so long as the rotation maintains some positive balance of relative health.

That’s what the fans want to see. Not necessarily a World Series championship but a team that plays to its highest caliber and gets the chance to show off all that it can do. Last season was a surprise, a trickster demon in the dark who held off his final scare for the bitter end. Going forward, the Mets and their fans know what they have, know what Syndergaard’s fastball can do to opposing bats, know what a healthy Cespedes can provide when unleashed. Sure, deserve got nothing to do with it, but the Mets should recognize that their window is likely shorter than most, thanks to a dependence on pitching, and that these opportunities come along oh so rarely. Just ask the Cubs. Hell, ask the Indians and Rangers, who may very well be vying for the role of Ultimate Sports Spoiler when the American League pennant is decided.

For the Mets, that season won’t be 2016, but no reason why it can’t be 2017. That’s why we watch. That’s why we hope. That’s why we always come back.

Photo Credit: Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports

However, the National League has allowed them to remain competitive, and not in the purely mathematical manner of the Braves. Until August 20, the Mets had a dismal 6-12 record in the month and had just lost four out of five to the woeful Diamondbacks and the slumping Giants. The Wild Card picture was not a pretty sight:

The Mets were five and a half games behind the Cardinals for just the second playoff spot, and they were closer to the 57-66 Phillies than St. Louis. Fans were understandably frustrated, particularly given the team’s action at the trade deadline.

To their credit though, the team has turned it around quickly in essentially a week’s worth of action. They won the last games of their four-game set in San Francisco to split that series, stole a road series victory from the Cardinals in St. Louis, and also dispatched the Phillies two out of three upon returning home this past weekend. The Mets’ 7-2 record in the small sample of nine games since the start of play on August 20 is the best in the NL.

The Mets have made up a full three games in the Wild Card standings, as their Wild Card competitors mostly struggled to hold them back. Last night, the Marlins continued this trend by allowing a walk-off homer to Yoenis Cespedes that brought the two teams even, and the mix is as intriguing as ever:

Whatever slim hopes the Rockies might have had have faded, as they were unable to gain any ground at all. The Dodgers and Giants swapped places, which despite the likely presence of Madison Bumgarner in a one-game playoff, is probably to the Mets’ benefit anyway since the Giants have been awful since the beginning of July and could very well fall out of it. The Pirates are the only other team that has gained ground, and they might be without ace Gerrit Cole.

The Mets have been hot, but the NL has absolutely given them this fortuitous opportunity through their opponents’ ineptitude. A Wild Card team should be more than just a handful of games over .500, and yet St. Louis sits in the playoff picture despite a barely 86-win pace. So there is a real chance for the Mets to defy expectations and make it to the playoffs, no matter how bleak the outlook appeared just a little over a week ago.

Sometimes, that small crack in the door is all it takes. It was 43 years ago today that the Mets found themselves dead last in the NL East and 10 games under .500 at 61-71. They trailed the Cardinals by six and a half games and needed to leapfrog four other teams simply to move into second place.

Those were the “Ya Gotta Believe” Mets of 1973. They shook off the struggles, played 21-8 ball down the stretch, and took advantage of all their rivals’ September swoons to steal the division title from St. Louis. It didn’t matter that they only had 82 wins. They were the division champions, and after shocking a 99-win “Big Red Machine” club in the NLCS, they took the Oakland A’s to Game 7 of the World Series in the middle of their “three-peat” dynasty.

Yogi Berra, the skipper of that ’73 Mets team, famously said, “It ain’t over ‘till it’s over.” However, he also said “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”

That’s a Yogi-ism, but as with all of them, there is deeper meaning. The NL has granted the Mets this fork in the road. They can take it with a good final month, one that already features a light schedule. A frantic run to the Wild Card would be something remarkable, but then again, 2015 proved that these new Mets are no strangers to the remarkable.

Photo Credit: Jeff Curry-USA TODAY Sports