☀️ Good Morning:
Baseball forgets.
It takes a 21-run differential in the first four games, 35 men left on base, and a 3–1 series deficit and stores it away in the rickety filing cabinet of irrelevant history.
It doesn’t remember the day before, or the day before that, only what is written on the current day.
One more win. That’s what I wrote on Friday morning.
One more win, and this Mets team that has defied all odds, exceeded all expectations, made it so even the most hard-headed fan, the prickly, red-nosed guy who orders two shots and a beer while reciting his problems to a twenty-something bartender before his train ride home, one more win, and even he has to believe in this romantic idea of the miracle Mets.
Because as good as this Dodgers team might appear, injuries have put them in a precarious situation: they either had to win this series in five games, finishing it with their best starter on the mound, or face the prospect of needing to get as many as 42-45 outs from their bullpen to close out a series in which the Mets will send Sean Manaea and his deceptive arm angle back to the mound, before handing it over to Luis Severino in a Game 7 where anything can happen.
Once Jack Flaherty’s fastball failed to pop in Game 5, all bets were off.
A contest that started with a series of unfortunate events — a ground ball that naturally snuck past a freshly-inserted Jeff McNeil, a line drive handcuffing Starling Marte, a sure-out that almost became a wide throw — turned into a series-changing win, Pete Alonso taking a slider he had no business swinging at and golfing it 432 feet for a home run.
The Mets, a club that has struck out more than any team remaining in the postseason, who flailed at pitches out of the zone against both Walker Buehler and Yoshinobu Yamamoto in the previous two losses, did not record a single strikeout on Friday.
They became the first team not to strikeout in a postseason game since the Angels in Game 2 of the 2002 World Series. It was the first game a Mets team hasn’t recorded a strikeout since 2010.
In place of a detailed issue, we decided to record a podcast with our immediate reactions from last night’s thrilling win. Enjoy that, and we will talk much more tomorrow about a Game 6 tilted in the Mets’ favor.
You don’t come to this newsletter for anyone to wave pom poms. I know you come for objective analysis and to be part of this wonderful community we have created together. Well, get out the pom poms and join the conversation, because objectively the Mets have a legitimate chance of winning this series.
Ya Gotta Believe!
🎧 Mets Fix Podcast
Facing elimination, the Mets pushed back again, forcing the series back to Los Angeles where the pitching match-ups pave the way for them to make a comeback. Blake, Peter and JB discuss the Game 5 win, including the big-time performance from Ryne Stanek and Jesse Winker.
⚾️ Bullpen Chart
Here is what the bullpen chart will look like before the game on Sunday:
🕷️ Find headlines for all of your favorite teams at SportSpyder, the number one source for sports news links.
🔗 The Blowout Series: Mets-Dodgers is bonkers baseball, an NLCS filled with runaway wins, by Jayson Stark, The Athletic ($): “We also exist to tell you that games like Friday’s — when the winning team (the Mets) somehow struck out zero times in 44 plate appearances — are so hard to comprehend that afterward, Francisco Lindor made me show him the box score on my phone before he could be convinced that had really happened.”
🔗 Mets embrace ‘opportunity to do something special’ as NLCS against Dodgers reaches Game 6, by John Harper, SNY: “Out in the hallway after his news conference, Carlos Mendoza was replaying in his mind not just another do-or-die display of resilience by his Mets ballclub but specifically the long and winding road that he had to navigate to get 16 outs from a bullpen mostly on fumes.”
🔗 The Pete Alonso conversation that Steve Cohen and David Stearns might as well be having, by Ken Rosenthal, The Athletic ($): “‘David, did you see that? I just saw Pete’s quotes. He said he was fooled on the pitch. Fooled! He hit it 113.6 mph! And he drove it 432 feet! To think, this could have been his last game at Citi Field. I don’t know, David, I don’t know.’”
Thanks for reading! Follow us on X for regular updates until our next newsletter.
And please check out our newsletters about the Knicks and Isles, too.
PETE ! Two time 3-run homeruns in in do or die games - wow !
So great to see Alvarez contributing with the bat. I do predict that he will be a big bopper next year. And, who knows, maybe these next two games?