NEW YORK — Welcome to one of the strangest postseason series ever played. Can we just call it The Blowout Series?

Every day, you think this National League Championship Series is due for a breathtaking October classic. Then you look up at the scoreboard, and it’s 10-2 in the fourth inning.

We’re five games into this thing now, and the Dodgers and Mets are both flying across the country to play another game Sunday. So at least this NLCS has that going for it. It’s never felt close, but — at Dodgers 3 wins, Mets 2 wins — it can’t possibly be closer.

Just check out the scores of these five games so far. The expression, nail-biter, is guaranteed not to cross your mind.

Game 1 (Sunday): Dodgers 9, Mets 0
Game 2 (Monday): Mets 7, Dodgers 3
Game 3 (Wednesday): Dodgers 8, Mets 0
Game 4 (Thursday): Dodgers 10, Mets 2
Game 5 (Friday): Mets 12, Dodgers 6

If you look at those scores and ask — Is this as bonkers as I think it is? — you’re not alone. Does it make you feel better to know that even the men playing in this series aren’t sure what the heck is happening.

“Well, it’s different,” said the Mets’ Brandon Nimmo.

“It makes no sense,” said his ever-philosophical teammate, reliever Ryne Stanek. “But it’s the playoffs. You almost expect things to go sideways.”

“You know,” said his bullpen buddy, Phil Maton, “baseball is just gonna baseball.”

Oh, is it ever. At least it’s one of those times in life when you should be grateful that there’s a column known as the October Weird and Wild column. We exist to tell you just how off the rails this series is.

We also exist to tell you that games like Friday’s — when the winning team (the Mets) somehow struck out zero times in 44 plate appearances — are so hard to comprehend that afterward, Francisco Lindor made me show him the box score on my phone before he could be convinced that had really happened. More on those Mets Zero Heroes shortly.

But first, let’s help you make sense of …

The land of the blowouts

Shohei Ohtani homers to lead off Game 4. Another blowout was on. (Vincent Carchietta / Imagn Images)

Five games. Five blowouts. C’mon, man. How even?

“It’s not exactly how I saw this going,” Nimmo said — and with good reason.

How rare are series like this? I asked our friends from STATS Perform to help me dig into that question. No matter how we framed it, the answer was always: Incredibly rare.

Five straight games decided by four runs or more?

Those of us covering this series spent much of the day asking each other: Do you ever remember a series like this? We couldn’t — and for good reason. There have only been three other series in postseason history in which five games had a margin of four runs or more:

1965 World Series — Dodgers vs. Twins (6)
2010 ALCS — Yankees vs. Rangers (5)
2021 ALCS — Red Sox vs. Astros (5)

(Source: STATS Perform)

But even that list makes this seem more common than it really is, because that’s the total number of blowouts among all the games in those series. In truth, only one other time — in 121 seasons of postseason baseball — have the first five games of a series been decided by four runs or more. And that was in that 1965 World Series, where the first six games were all wipeouts.

But hold on. There’s more. What about …

Four games in a series decided by six runs or more?

Don’t forget that in this series, a four-run game almost feels close. Friday was the fourth game in which the winning margin was six runs or more. Only two other postseason series in history have featured that many games that were that lopsided.

2007 ALCS — Red Sox vs. Indians (5)
1986 ALCS — Red Sox vs. Angels (4)

(Source: STATS Perform)

But both of those series went seven games. This series is only five games old. So … stay tuned!

Five games decided by 35 runs in total?

Isn’t it flat-out nuts that the average margin of victory in the five games in this NLCS is seven runs? According to STATS, there has been only one other series, of five games or longer, where that happened. That was the five-game 1999 ALDS between the Red Sox and Indians, in which the total combined margin of victory was 37 runs — for an average of 7.4.

But if we look at only best-of-seven series, this NLCS is on pace to produce the most one-sided results ever. STATS found just four other best-of-seven series all time with a total margin of victory of more than 35 runs: