Braves welcome suddenly relevant Mets to SunTrust

The good: The Braves will miss Jacob deGrom and Noah Syndergaard when the Mets come to Atlanta for a three-game series beginning today. The bad: The Braves will face Zack Wheeler and Marcus Stroman when the Mets come to Atlanta today.

The suddenly recharged Mets boast one of the best NL rotations, with their mainstays healthy and Stroman added to the mix prior to the trade deadline.

Less than two months ago, when the Braves took two of three from the Mets in New York, the franchise was on a downward spiral. It was their first home series following manager Mickey Calloway’s confrontation with a reporter, and he was deemed a dead man walking. Once 11 games under .500, the Mets have assembled a franchise-best surge. They’ve won 14 of 16, jumping into the wild card race with a 61-57 record. They’ve leapfrogged the Phillies by a game in the NL East and are within 1½ of the Nationals.

That doesn’t mean the Braves have much to fear, though the Mets have shrunken a 14½-game deficit to eight. The Mets, for all their flaws and drama, stack up well in a postseason series. It isn’t a rotation any team would want to face.

The Braves have nine games with the Mets remaining, including six in August. Six of those will be played in Flushing. That isn’t to say the Mets will make the Braves sweat out the division race’s finish, but it does mean the Braves will face a potent opponent that could affect their seeding.

And so perhaps some flavor will be restored to the rivalry. The Mets have been irrelevant through the Braves’ rise of the past two seasons. If New York’s recent run isn’t a flash in the pan, maybe the next era of Braves-Mets will begin sooner than expected.

GETTY IMAGES Marcus Stroman (reacting to a strikeout) joined the Mets in July and has given them another potent pitcher.