Mets announce 2017 schedule

Major League Baseball released the 2017 schedule this morning, and the Mets have quite the interesting slate next season. They will start the year on Monday, April 3, hosting the Braves and face the American League West in interleague play. New York will face the Angels and Athletics at Citi Field, travel to Seattle and Houston, and split a four-game season series against the Rangers between the teams’ two ballparks in June and August. Additionally, the Mets’ home-and-home with the Yankees will run from August 14-17.

Some other interesting tidbits about the schedule:

• The Mets do not play a team outside the N.L. East until May 8, when they begin a three-game series against the Giants. Beating up the bad teams in their own division will again be a key to success for the Mets to start off the season on the right foot.
• Expanding on that last note, the Mets will play either the Braves and Marlins in 20 of their first 33 games. In other words, the Mets will have played more than half of their season series against each Atlanta and Miami in roughly the first 20 percent of their schedule.
• If all current records hold, the only teams the Mets will face before June that finish 2016 above .500 will be Washington and San Francisco. Miami and Pittsburgh may still end up with winning records, though.
• However, the schedule gets considerably harder once the calendar turns to June. The Mets must do battle against the Rangers, Nationals, Cubs, Dodgers, and Giants all in the same month. Compared with an easy stretch in mid-May where they face the Brewers, Diamondbacks, Angels, and Padres, this June slate will be a slog.
• The All-Star Game will take place on Tuesday, July 11 at Marlins Park, and the National League will be the home team after the American League “hosted” this year in San Diego.
• In August, the Mets will be playing 20 games in 20 consecutive days, barring rainouts, in their only such stretch of the season. They won’t have to travel very far, as all the games will be in either New York, Philadelphia or Washington D.C., but it’s still a grueling task.
• The Mets’ recent cupcake September schedules look to be a thing of the past, at least for one season. In September 2017, New York will play the Astros, Cubs, and Nationals, all three of which have the potential to be serious contenders. While there are still a lot of easy matchups in September, especially in the NL East, it’s harder than each of the last two seasons. Last September, the Mets’ only opponents over .500 were the Yankees and Nationals, while this September it’s only the Nationals.
• A bit more on that last point: The Mets will play the Reds in September for the fifth consecutive season. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to it, but New York will likely happily take the easy series. The Mets currently have a 14-game winning streak over Cincinnati.

And here’s the full schedule: