Atlanta Braves come back home hoping to cool off the New York Mets

The Atlanta Braves welcome the New York Mets, the hottest team in baseball, to town Tuesday for a three-game series.

While some of the results weren’t what they would like, the Atlanta Braves did go 4-3 on last week’s road trip, which kept their lead in the National League East at 6.5 games over the Washington Nationals and eight games over the New York Mets, who visit SunTrust Park Tuesday night.

It seemed far-fetched three weeks ago that the Mets would play themselves back into the postseason mix, but sure enough, after going 16-4 in that stretch, the Mets are now just one game back in the NL Wild Card with a record of 61-57.

During their torrid play, the Mets are averaging 5.5 runs per game, while only allowing opponents to score 3.2. In those 20 games, the Mets starting pitching recorded four shutouts.

The rotation is by far the strength to the Mets as Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard, Marcus Stroman, Zack Wheeler, and Steven Matz comprise the best staff in the National League and at least could be argued as the best in the entire game.

Arguably the best starting pitcher in the game, deGrom has pitched like it again this season, going 7-7, but has a 2.83 ERA, a WHIP of 1.02 and a 4.3 WAR.

From an offensive standpoint, three young studs have led the Mets back into postseason contention. Jeff McNeil leads the NL in hitting at .337, while Pete Alonso (38 homers) and Michael Conforto (25 homers) provide thump in the middle of the order.

The Atlanta Braves have taken six-of-10 from the Mets this season, but this is a much different Mets team than what the Braves saw in June.

Luckily for the Braves, they won’t have to face deGrom or Syndergaard in the series, which means it seems rather important to take two of three before the Dodgers come to town this weekend.