There's no funnier way for the Phillies to start October than with a meeting with the Mets

Phillies-Mets prepare for NLDS.

The Mets staged a dramatic ninth-inning comeback in do-or-die Game 3 of their wild-card round Thursday night, beating the Brewers 4-2 on Pete Alonso's three-run homer in what otherwise would have been his final out. Bat with the team.

They've been on the road for nearly two weeks, playing five games in the last four days and will have just 24 hours off before facing the Phillies in Game 1 at Citizens Bank Park on Saturday at 4:08 p.m.

The first pitch of the NLDS will be thrown by Jack Wheeler. It looked like the Mets would use lefty David Peterson, whose 2.41 ERA helped lead his team to the playoffs in his final 11 starts, but he needed relief for the ninth inning Thursday. It could end up being Tyler Magill, Luis Severino on short rest or a bullpen game for the Mets. Peterson is still probably playing himself, though it's not as open-and-shut as it is now. Starting in the wild-card round were Severino, Shawn Mana and Jose Quintana.

The Mets are a solid team — power, plate selection, ability to hit together and come back late in games. They did it all week, all month and throughout the second half. It's a deep lineup with Francisco Lindor, Brandon Nimmo, Alonso, Mark Vientos, Jose Iglesias, Jesse Winker, Starling Marte, JD Martinez. They don't have the top-end pitching of the Phillies, nor is their bullpen deep or talented after Edwin Diaz, but they won't be pushovers.

The Mets were eight games under .500 when the Phillies faced them in London the second week of June. Owner Steve Cohen raised questions that weekend about Carlos Mendoza's managerial ability, the trade deadline and the need for a rebuild. They were 28-36 when they left London and went 61-37 the rest of the way.

One of the things the Phils match up well against the Mets is right-handed velocity. Other than Nimmo and Winker, every Mets threat hits from the right side, and the switch-hitting Lindor has been good against lefties. Phillies can tackle Wheeler, Aaron Nola, Jeff Hoffman, Carlos Estevez, Orion Carkering and lefty Matt Strahm.

This season Wheeler holds the second-lowest OPS (.434) of any pitcher in the last 50 years, behind only prime Max Scherzer. Righties hit .133 vs. Strahm, .173 vs. Hoffman, .186 vs. Estevez and .209 vs. Kerkering

Nola has faced the Mets twice this season, pitching a four-hit shutout in May and allowing six runs without striking out in the fifth inning in September. He will start either Game 2 or Game 3 with Christopher Sanchez pitching the other.

The roll the Mets are on right now is reminiscent of the 2022 Phillies — below .500 in June, a late second-half comeback, a multi-week road trip to end the regular season and start the playoffs. They've spent the better part of the last month crushing at-bats and responding when opponents score.

They are as dangerous a team as you will face at this time of year. The Phillies won the season series, 7-6, dropping three of the last four. In retrospect, splitting the late-September series at Citi Field would have made the Mets' path to the playoffs more difficult and perhaps prevented it entirely.

Instead, the Phillies will face a division rival in the NLDS for the third straight postseason. The last two times, they were underdogs facing a 100-plus-win Braves team considered baseball's best. This time, they're hunting.

No juicy way to kick off the month the fanbase has been waiting for for a year.