When it mattered most, the New York Mets and the Atlanta Braves managed to step up big-time in their games, punching a ticket to the next stage of the MLB season – the playoffs. Now both teams get a chance to compete at the highest level with the hopes of entrenching themselves in the Wild Card series.

All American League teams were settled before Sunday, but the National League had to host two games between the New York Mets and the Atlanta Braves as they needed late-game heroics to settle the series and finally secure their respective playoff spots. The Braves end up as the no. 5 seed and will now battle the San Diego Padres in the Wild Card Series, while the Mets will take on the Milwaukee Brewers.

The Mets took Game 1 in a dramatic finish with a late rally in the eighth and ninth inning to secure an 8-7 victory. The Braves would then bounce back and secure a win against a confident Mets team who already had nothing to lose in the season, allowing Atlanta to steal a 3-0 win to secure their own playoff spot.

A Dramatic Finish to the Season

For the whole season, the first game has been quite the story for the New York Mets as it led to a defining finish that needed a heroic play from Francisco Lindor to come up with a game-saving hit to score a two-run homer that snatched the victory against the Braves. The captain pulled off one of the best performances of his career, and it cannot be denied that he was the game-changer for that moment.

That winner by Lindor turned what could have been one of the most disappointing Mets losses into a promising victory, but that was just the half of a series – as the Braves would then go on to bounce back on their own to secure a much-needed victory to preserve their postseason chances after that loss to the Mets.

This season would have ended up as a disappointing finish for the Braves had it not been for the dominant performance in the second string of the doubleheader against the Mets. Atlanta went on to secure a 3-0 victory that would lead them to the playoff stage thanks to Grant Holmes’ sudden step up as he delivered four-plus scoreless innings.

“I had enough time to sit down, use the bathroom, and then come back and get ready to pitch,” Holmes said, who was notified that he was starting in place of Chris Sale just about 30 minutes before the game but managed to deliver impressive results.

Preventing a Third Party

Had it been a dominant win on both games for either the Mets or the Braves, a third team would have clinched a playoff berth. Instead, the Arizona Diamondbacks are now headed to an early summer after falling just a little bit short of the playoff spot as the series ended up in a split between the Mets and Braves.

Arizona did secure a needed win over the San Diego Padres – who did not play its main players in the game to rest them up ahead of the playoffs. However, they needed two wins from either the Mets or the Braves as their season record placed them in a three-way tie that could have easily led them to the postseason.

But with the win for both clubs, the Mets and Braves upset the Diamondbacks with an early offseason exit instead, while they get the chance to play at the highest level to begin the postseason rally.