Thursday night I came home from Game Four of the National League Championship Series resigned to the 2024 Mets season being imminently over. Friday morning I awoke thinking only that there’d be a baseball game come late afternoon and that the Mets would be playing in it, and between the regular season and the postseason, the Mets had won ballgames 95 times this year, so it wouldn’t be a stretch to believe they might win another. I didn’t stress about it. I didn’t worry over the odds of coming back from down three-one. I didn’t shrink at the specter of Ohtani and Betts and Muncy (oh my). I just knew the Mets would be playin’ some ball, and that the Mets have some pretty good ballplayers, and, well…play ball!
So the Mets did. They played the hell out of ball in Game Five, hitting balls particularly hard and in a timely fashion, while their pitchers stopped throwing quite so many balls. It all added up to a glorious chorus of “Stayin’ Alive,” which you could hear in the echoes of “My Girl,” which was actually performed live by the Temptations pregame. “My Girl” was for Francisco Lindor, who doesn’t come to bat without the song’s first verse echoing through Citi Field. “Stayin’ Alive” was the mission.
Mission accomplished. For Game Five, that is. The temptation is to look beyond the Mets’ 12-6 throttling of the Dodgers — is it possible for a score to simultaneously not indicate how close and not close a game was? — and think about what it will take to win the next two contests and therefore the pennant. Tamp down that temptation. The next mission is Game Six and Game Six solely. Peer too far ahead and you’re standing on shaky ground.
But we ain’t too proud to beg for a whole lot more of what kept us alive in Game Five.
Pete Alonso, in his third final-ever game as a Met at Citi Field, changed the tenor of this NLCS in one mighty swing, golfing a Jack Flaherty pitch to the western edge of the 7 Line Army seats, where the night before, I can personally attest, it grew chilly and hopeless. Francisco digs the Temps. Pete raises the temperature. Two Mets had been on when Alonso attacked, meaning the Met lead was 3-0. The message to Dave Roberts, regarding his starting pitcher who stymied us in Game One, was (and I’m borrowing this Karl Ehrhardt-worthy line from author Michael Elias) Flaherty will get you nowhere.
Go back, Jack, and do it again, the Mets lineup had to be thinking. The second inning saw a leadoff double from Francisco Alvarez wasted, except for the notion that Alvy was suddenly off the schneid, but the third crumbled Dodger pitching in Sensurround. Flaherty walked his first two batters, proving that it’s not only Mets pitchers who do that. Starling Marte, very much living up to his first name’s first syllable, doubled both runners home, and it was off to the Met races. With two outs, there was an Alvy single, a Lindor triple, a Brandon Nimmo base hit, and an 8-1 Met lead lighting up the Citi scoreboard. Yeah, the Dodgers had snuck a run up there off recurring lifesaver David Peterson in the second, but who was worried about the Dodgers when the Mets were ahead, 8-1?
Everybody, obviously. Have you seen these Dodgers? I saw them with my own eyes in Game Four and I considered looking away. Geez, they’re dangerous. For two nights, they were Murderer’s Row taking batting practice in-game, and the Mets might as well have been the 1927 Pirates calling it a day, per legend, before a single pitch was thrown in competition. Except we know the 2024 Mets are not a give-up crew. Maybe they wouldn’t be a champion crew, but they weren’t going to go down without a fight.
Nor would the Dodgers. They indeed got to Peterson enough to rattle Carlos Mendoza’s nerves sufficiently to call on Reed Garrett to protect what was now an 8-2 lead in the fourth. But then Jesse Winker added an RBI triple to the one Lindor hit the inning before (because triples are just that easily come by), and good ol’ Mets fan favorite Jesse got driven in by the blessedly active Jeff McNeil. Winker and McNeil replaced J.D. Martinez and Jose Iglesias in Mendoza’s lineup once Mendy remembered Jeff and Jesse are his guys, too. Gotta love an adaptable skipper.
Garrett now had an eight-run lead to safeguard, until it was a five-run lead, courtesy of Andy Pages’s second home run of the game. Pages was L.A.’s nine-hitter. If their last batter can swat two home runs, I’d hate to see who they have batting first.
Oh right, Ohtani. Mendoza knew that and brought in Ryne Stanek to strike out Shohei to end the fifth. Excellent plan.
Stanek, more or less the Mets’ primary setup man, stayed into the sixth, which started nervously with a Mookie Betts homer, but then settled down via three quick outs and not a single base on balls. Peterson had walked four and Garrett one, but the bullpen was now out of the carousel business. It made a world of difference. From a throat-clearing advantage of 10-6, McNeil contributed his second sac fly of the day to provide an extra firm cushion, and, in the eighth, Marte’s fourth hit brought home the Mets’ twelfth run. By then, Edwin Diaz was in the midst of succeeding Stanek’s two-and-a-third of scoreless ball with two superbly effective frames of his own, and, yes, the Mets were alive. Certainly not dead yet.
Big change from the night before when I felt compelled to wake my wife around one in the morning and debrief her on the somber scene at Citi. Yes, it was fun for many reasons, and I was delighted to get the call from Jason to join him in the center field orange grove — and thanks to not-my-first-rodeo layering, I didn’t even shiver very much — but yeesh. The joint was half-empty when it was over, and who could blame the Mets fans who didn’t want to push midnight just to take in every last inch of a 10-2 debacle that had pushed us to the brink of elimination? At least their departure made the diehard trudge to the subway a breeze.
Anyway, that, along with every trip to the edge of every 2024 abyss, feels distant in the wake of Game Five, a Game Five that now precedes a very necessary Game Six. The way the Mets do the things they do might eventually end us. But they also keep us going.
No strikeouts. Doubt it means more than only striking out 3-4 times but it does have a nice ring to it. Loved that Alonso’s HR came on a perfectly acceptable Flaherty pitch – if it were game 1 when Mets batters swung helplessly over it.
Not done. Dodgers still not definitively the better team. And it’s Manaea vs the Bullpen. There’s a club band name in there somewhere. There’s also a promising pitching matchup. LGM.
“Dodgers still not definitively the better team.”
Big difference in result, yet there wasn’t a big difference in game-play between game 4 and game 5. The Mets got plenty of runners on in game 4. They just RISP LOB’ed them. In game 5, they cashed them in. Same deal on the pitching side. The Mets made enough timely pitches in game 5, the ones they failed to make in game 4 in similar situations. Then the Dodgers didn’t tack on more runs than they did because the Mets used relief to win instead of soak up innings.
The Mets adjusted to Flaherty after game 1. While Manaea was similarly sharp before he suddenly lost it in game 2, I’m nervous that it’s the Dodgers’ 2nd look in a week at his crossfire adjustment. I’m also not confident the Mets offense will repeat game 2’s success against the Dodgers’ bullpen game, which shut down the Padres, and whatever adjustments they make.
I believe there will be a pivotal moment where the NLCS will turn on whether Senga holds the Dodgers cold for 2-4 innings, and that moment may well come in a game 6 where the Dodgers wear out Manaea early.
“While Manaea was similarly sharp before he suddenly lost it in game 2,”
I didn’t see Manaea lose anything except his infield. If Iglesias starts a fairly routine double play it’s two outs and a man on third and probably a fairly easy 6 innings.
One game at a time is an important point — if they can just win game 6, they force a game 7 where anything’s possible. Which Mets team will show up, though? Last night proved there are two separate Mets teams, that have very little relation to each other.
“Flaherty will get you nowhere,” nice.
I wonder if the warmer temps of the earlier start time helped. If the better weather did help, the early evening start times in LA could make a difference.
To make the idea of coming back from 3-1 down less daunting, I tell myself that if the series had reached the same 2-3 record via L-W-L-W-L, it would feel like a close back and forth rather than climbing a mountain.
Not for the 1st time this year, the Mets offense flipped overnight from utterly futile to hitting clinic. The 2024 Mets defy rational analytical fandom. The most consistent characteristic of this team is they suffer losses as bad as any we’ve witnessed as Mets fans–that look like familiar lolMets season killers–and they just keep bouncing back, punching hard. They flip the switch within games. It’s an irrational ride that feels like going down 3-1 actually matches the 2024 Mets win formula more than going up 3-1 would have.
The Dodgers’ relentless offense plus the Mets starters’ short outings plus the leaky shrinking bullpen is an anxious combination. I don’t see how the Mets are going to get through games 6 and 7 without using starters in relief, particularly Senga.
Having seen them all, I feel confident that every winning Mets team defies rational analytical fandom. Don’t forget that the ‘86 team -on paper our best team for sure, and one that was everyone’s pick to go all the way that year- needed the craziest luck of all time to reach Game 7.
I knew this Mets team was a good bet to go far this postseason when that ball bounced off third base and into Vientos’s hands. It follows in the pantheon of Mets memorable, Ya Gotta Believe it moments that so many of us know by heart and refer to in a language that only other Mets fans understand. Say them with me now….the Imperfect Game, the Black Cat, shoe polish, Agee and Swoboda, Ball off the Wall, Game Six in Houston, Gets by Buckner, the Grand Slam Single, Tears of Joy, etc.
In addition to that crazy bounce off third, this Mets team has added Lindor’s 9th inning homer against the Braves, Alonso’s against Milwaukee, Lindor again with the slam against the Phillies, Nimmo gutting out that run to first, and certainly there will be others long remembered.
I am a very rational, decisive person in just about every other aspect of my life, but fandom, especially Mets fandom, is different. Fandom is love, and fandom is fun, and fandom can send you screaming into the autumn night not really believing what you just saw. It’s why my husband turned to me a few months ago and stated “the Mets are just more fun than the Yankees.” The Mets are a good baseball team this year, but I suggest absorbing the “vibes” of what’s happening here. It doesn’t guarantee anything, of course, but that’s fandom.
Over the course of these long broadcasts on ESPN and Fox, one announcer said to another, “How do you explain the Mets?” Howie, GKR and even Steve Cohen and Stearns know you can’t explain the Mets. You just Gotta Believe.
Just so. Thanks for saying it.
At this point, they’ve redeemed themselves, and no matter what happens now, I’ll always remember the 2024 Mets with great fondness and affection. Losing the NLCS at home would have stung (although the Wilpons would have no doubt loved it), but they came through. Zero Ks for the first time in…FOURTEEN YEARS!!! Yikes. How the hell does THAT happen? They’re still quite capable of anything, these guys. I’m done analyzing it, now I’m just holding on, listening to Howie’s calls, and enjoying the ride.
At first I thought that having the Temps singing “My Girl” live was a cornball move that belonged, like the Dodgers, in Hollywood. Because Fox didn’t see fit to show us the full performance, it wasn’t until the later innings that I saw the big smile it brought to Lindor’s face, and I softened a bit – anything for our MVP! Then I started reading on Twitter and elsewhere that everyone at Citi Field loved it and many thought it had kept the Mets loose and in the moment, and I was thinking “Brilliant move, Mets!”
Because the Mets did look loose and happy up and down the lineup, helped no doubt by Alonso’s mammoth shot by the Apple. (My husband and I once sat in that very spot to the right of the Apple for a homer hit by Dom Smith except maybe a dozen rows further up). They looked like they hadn’t a care in the world, the fans were jumping and cheering, and I think the early start helped the atmosphere immensely. I did notice the many empty seats in the first few innings and felt bad for everyone stuck on the road and in the subways in a NYC Friday afternoon rush hour, but I knew everyone would make it eventually by the 3rd or 4th or 5th inning and even though the Mets were facing elimination, it was the best atmosphere of the series thus far, and I think it will carry over to LA.
Because it’s the Dodgers who looked like they were feeling the pressure last night, and I think the Mets have found their lost rhythm. Sometimes a series turns on something that seems insignificant – like a song. But then, the Mets whole season turned on a song. OMG – sing it loud and proud, Mets!
“At first I thought that having the Temps singing “My Girl” live was a cornball move”
Grimace, OMG signs and now Alonso is carrying a pumpkin from city to city. The entire season has been a series of cornball moves. Seriously – is the team from NYC or Mayberry?
And I love it. I’m hoping they cornball their way to the WS but if not we’ve witnessed a NY team doing things you’d expect if they were from a town with just one stoplight.
Looking forward to tonight, more than perhaps any other game this year. Here’s hoping for no “Balls of Confusion” on infield dribblers with men on base, and that Manaea pitches a “Masterpiece”, which will put us all on “Cloud Nine”.
There you go. Thanks for the lead.
Or at least Cloud Seven. LGM!