Sunday night’s nationally televised baseball battle between the Philadelphia Phillies and San Francisco Giants (ESPN, 7 p.m.) gives us a chance to check in on an important divisional rival of the New York Mets.

When VSiN last discussed the Phillies, they had mauled the Mets in six of seven meetings before the All-Star break. But, they entered the layoff in a 4-15 slide when not playing the Mets.

At the time, it was difficult to see Philadelphia as a serious playoff threat and impossible to see the Mets or the Giants in any wild-card scenarios. There’s so much parity in the National League right now that any sort of decent stretch puts a team in the discussion. All three inspired plenty of chatter, with the Mets registering loudest and longest. (Though, interestingly, San Francisco is currently the only full-season moneymaker for bettors.)

Key Phillies’ points to update:

Bryce Harper is still a big disappointment. He is barely above the 20-home run threshold, but a lot of guys are going to do that with this season’s aerodynamically friendly baseballs. Harper plays his home games in a bandbox. His power numbers have been anemic away from Citizens Bank Park.

The Phillies can’t be taken seriously as anything more than wild-card filler unless Harper finds peak form. High-impact numbers from 2015 and 2017 are way back in the rearview mirror.

Jason Vargas was recently traded to the Phillies from the Mets. Though it wasn’t expressed this way to the press, it was basically the Mets saying, “Sure, we know his ERA is OK at 4.01, but his xFIP is a lousy 5.22.” In laymen’s terms, Vargas had been pitching in good luck, which disguised his diminishing skill-set. Vargas allows too many walks and too many home runs. In his two starts with the Phillies, he has allowed six earned runs in 11¹/₃ innings. Philadelphia lost to both the Diamondbacks and White Sox.

Vargas is much more likely to be a rotation negative than a positive. It was damning indeed that the Mets traded him to a divisional rival they needed to chase down. Now he’s a home run-prone pitcher starting his home games in a bandbox!

Philadelphia entered this San Francisco series with a negative full-season run differential despite having played more home games than road games. That’s an ugly combination likely to matter when all the schedules even out.

Heading into Sunday’s action, the Mets still have nine more home games than road games, which might help soften the challenge of this month’s daunting list of opponents.

Whenever many wild-card threats are within arm’s reach of .500 this deep into a season, they’re all going to have some “pretender” indicators. San Francisco’s indicators reemerged once it cooled off. Philadelphia’s are hard to miss. The Mets’ will be discussed further in VSiN’s Tuesday preview of their important series at Atlanta.