Last week in The Official Power Rankings, we discussed the surge from the defending AL (and World Series, obviously) champion Royals. That's still going on, but now let's look at the defending NL champs. They seem to be getting right, even if not in terms of being injury-free.

With a win over their fellow wild-card contender Marlins, the Mets have won eight of their last 10 and have moved into second place in the NL East. They have gotten the deficit in the race for the second NL wild card spot down to 2 1/2 games and there's no one between them and the Cardinals for said spot.

There are also some soft spots on the remaining schedule for the Mets. They have seven games left against the Phillies, six against the Braves, three against the Twins and three against the Reds.

That's a rosy picture.

What isn't so rosy, though? Steven Matz and Neil Walker might be out for the rest of the season. Juan Lagares is on the DL. We already know all about Matt Harvey, David Wright and Lucas Duda.

This is an awful lot of adversity which isn't even getting into short-fall performances (compared to expectations heading into the season) from the likes of Michael Conforto, Travis d'Arnaud and the aforementioned Harvey.

Given those travails, several of which are ongoing, it's hard to have a ton of confidence in the Mets moving forward.

Then again, they do have that soft schedule mentioned above along with some studs like Yoenis Cespedes, Noah Syndergaard, Jacob deGrom and Jeurys Familia. Seth Lugo has put together two straight very good starts and there's hope that players like Conforto (if given the chance), d'Arnaud and Jay Bruce can hit better down the stretch.

This is another situation where I'll say that I will not predict this team to make the playoffs and it still feels at least slightly unlikely, but I surely won't be surprised if it does happen. They are getting hot at the right time, have most of the pieces needed and the schedule to do it.