With 162 games of the regular season in the books, the newly formatted best-of-three game Wild Card has finally arrived as the San Diego Padres will be traveling to the Big Apple to take on the New York Mets. With the anticipation for the start of the postseason at an all-time high, it is time to take a look at our MLB odds series, where our Padres-Mets prediction and pick will be revealed.

Coming into the postseason with a second-place finish in the NL West at 89-73, the San Diego Padres are determined to make some noise in the playoffs with some stingy pitching and timely hitting. This is a very dangerous squad that is eager to break the hearts of every Mets fan in the Queens area. Getting the opening playoff start in this one will be RHP Yu Darvish, who went an impressive 16-8 while posting a 3.10 ERA in his 30 regular season starts.

Nevertheless, the Mets are one of the more dangerous teams in the National League and will be backed by one of the most feared postseason pitchers in recent memory the intimidating Max Scherzer for the opening playoff matchup against the Padres. On the year, Scherzer was absolutely electric with an 11-5 record and a minuscule 2.29 ERA.

Here are the Padres-Mets MLB odds, courtesy of FanDuel. 

NL Wild Card Odds: Padres-Mets Odds

San Diego Padres: +1.5 (-184)

New York Mets: -1.5 (+152)

Over: 6 (-120)

Under: 6 (-102)

Why The Padres Could Cover The Spread

Even though the Padres did not live up to the pre-season hype of challenging the Dodgers for the NL West, San Diego still overcome a hefty amount of adversity to reach the postseason for the first time since the COVID-shortened year of 2020. After a disappointing 2021 campaign, can San Diego grab the upper hand in this series with an opening game spread-covering win?

In order to accomplish that, the Padres will be tasked with the difficult challenge of finding a way to generate some offense against the dominant Scherzer. Not necessarily one of the more lethal hitting teams in the league, San Diego still has some superstars within their lineup that can change the outcome of a game with one swing of the bat. Not to mention, acquiring OF Juan Soto might prove to be the most important move the Friars could've made ahead of this playoff matchup. Throughout his young career, Soto has proved to be a Mets killer with a 1.001 OPS and a lifetime .303 batting average against New York.

With Scherzer on the mound opposing San Diego, it will be extremely important for Darvish to find a rhythm to keep pace in this one. With a total of six Cy Young pitchers on both sides, and if this series goes the distance, the Padres' biggest difference maker will come from their arms. As a whole, San Diego can find solace in the fact that their starting pitching logged 82 quality starts on the season, which was the second-most in all of baseball.

Why The Mets Could Cover The Spread

On track to win the NL East crown for a majority of the season, the Mets ended up not being able to hold the Braves at bay as Atlanta surged into the top spot of the division and never looked back. Coincidentally, New York was left in shambles and is now a Wild Card-bound team with a total of 101 wins.

At first glance, New York was hands down one of the more explosive teams from top-to-bottom in the entire league. Whether the fireworks came from the heart of their lineup or from the bump, there is no denying what the Mets were able to accomplish this season regardless of not being able to hold on to their division lead.

Without a doubt, the biggest advantage that the Mets will have over the Padres in not only this contest but in the whole series will be their elite starting pitching. Possessing two of the more dynamic pitchers throughout the last decade of major league baseball in Max Scherzer and Jacob deGrom, the future duo of Hall-of-Fame hurlers will relieve New York's offense with any sort of pressure as they will most likely not be required to score a plethora of runs with them on the mound. Not to mention, Scherzer has already pitched on the world's biggest of stages having won a World Series with Washington back in 2019, so there isn't anything that the multi-colored-eyed pitcher won't be intimidated by. In his illustrious career, Scherzer has started in 26 playoff games and will surely be clicking on all cylinders in the opening game of this series.

Final Padres-Mets Prediction & Pick

The month of October is finally upon us, which means that playoff baseball is ready to take the world by storm! When it comes to this highly anticipated matchup between the Padres and Mets, it will be the city of New York that will be rejoicing by covering the spread in this one due to their dominance at home during the regular season and with Scherzer serving as one of the great postseason twirlers of all time.

Final Padres-Mets Prediction & Pick: Mets -1.5 (+152)