The last time the Mets were in Atlanta, they won two of three from the Braves in April as they were digging themselves out of an 0-5 start to the season.
If they have the same results over the next three days at Truist Park, the Mets will clinch a playoff spot.
Lose two of three, the Mets will still control their destiny going into the final weekend series against the NL Central-leading Brewers, but the road gets a lot murkier.
Get swept and they would likely need help to make the playoffs.
It’s been quite a journey for the Mets to get from there to here, with a 24-35 record on June 2 that’s been followed by the best record in baseball over the ensuing nearly four months.
That’s among the reasons the Mets remain confident as they head into the final week of the regular season, with series remaining at the Braves and Brewers.
The Mets have already clinched tiebreakers over the Diamondbacks and Padres and are coming off a homestand in which they won six of seven, including a series win over the first-place Phillies.
All of that adds up to the Mets not being terribly interested in reflecting on two years ago, when they were swept by the Braves in Atlanta in the penultimate series of the regular season, which cost them the NL East crown and led to an early October knockout by San Diego in a wild card series.
Prior to Sunday night’s win in the series finale at Citi Field, Pete Alonso noted that it wasn’t just the ugly series versus the Braves in 2022 that helped ruin their season.
He also pointed to another three-game sweep, this one in Queens, in the middle of September to a Cubs team that ended the season 14 games under .500, as well as a series loss at home earlier in the month to a 107-loss Nationals team.
“People look at the moment of Atlanta, but there [were] so many other moments in the season,’’ Alonso said.
The three starters that disappointed in that series late in 2022 against the Braves are all elsewhere, with Jacob deGrom and Max Scherzer now in Texas and Chris Bassitt in Toronto.
This time, the Mets will turn to the trio of Luis Severino, David Peterson and Sean Manaea, with the Braves countering with Spencer Schwellenbach, Chris Sale and Max Fried.
The Mets’ performance since the end of May gives them the confidence to like their chances, regardless of the opponent.
“What we’ve done this year is a great job at just playing super-clean baseball,” Alonso said. “Not that we didn’t in years past, but this has been really special.”
And it’s helped them salvage a season that saw them six games back of the last wild card spot with seven teams to pass on May 29 to two games up on Atlanta for that same spot and locked in a battle with Arizona for the second wild card.
“I think we’ve been the best team in baseball the last four months, record-wise, and we needed to do that to put ourselves in this position,’’ Alonso said. “Every guy has been locked in and focused the entire year.”
Because of that, Brandon Nimmo said there won’t be much of an adjustment when it comes to intensity for this final week of the regular season.
“I feel like we’ve been playing playoff games for the last week or so and we shouldn’t treat it any differently than that,” Nimmo said. “You go in there [and] it’s gonna be high energy. It’s gonna be a playoff atmosphere and it’s gonna be great.”