Believe It!

I keep coming back to something I said way back at the beginning of the season. It seems like a lifetime ago now. I feel like I've been repeating it incessantly over the past few weeks, but that's only because as the Mets keep on playing and keep on winning, it's the truth. The Mets of 2015 were a better team than anyone wanted to give them credit for. But the pieces were there. This was a really good team, and all they needed was an opportunity. At some point in the season, they would have that opportunity and they would prove to everyone what they really were.

What they are right now are the National League Champions for 2015.

It seems so strange to actually say that, and to say that the Mets are, in fact, going to play in the 2015 World Series starting next Tuesday, but it's actually happening.

They got to this point, of course, by finishing off a clean sweep of the Chicago Cubs on Wednesday night with an 8-3 victory, one of those games where the magnitude of the accomplishment seems to overshadow what happened in the game itself. That, I suppose is natural, but overlooking this game would be doing a disservice to the spirit in which the Mets got to this point. Though there were standout efforts by one or two particular players, it's been a different player every night providing some kind of key support during this Postseason run and that's the formula the Mets have used all year long.

Wednesday, Lucas Duda provided the punch, after spending the entire NLDS and NLCS in a deep slump, to the point where he was benched for Game 1 of this series. But as he's done all year, Duda persevered, kept working, never complained and of course last night he came through with a 2-out, 3-run Home Run in the 1st inning to give the Mets a lead they'd never relinquish, and with 2 out in the 2nd inning, he hit what was basically a hard line drive that skipped through the infield, through the outfield and all the way to the wall for a 2-run double to give the Mets a 6-0 lead. Duda seems to have a flair for clinching games, lest we forget what he did in Cincinnati.

Steven Matz was on the mound for the Mets and you figured things would be OK for him when he got an At Bat before ever setting foot on the mound. Matz started his evening by blanking the Cubs through 3 innings. In the 4th, though, the Cubs rallied and loaded the bases with no outs. It seemed a bit hairy, and believe me, watching this game was pretty hairy even with a big lead, but Matz did what seems to be the norm among Mets pitchers and stop things before they got out of hand. He got Starlin Castro to line out to David Wright, allowed a run on a Kyle Schwarber ground out and then got Javier Baez to pop up. In the 5th, Matz allowed more men on base and this time was pulled in favor of Bartolo Colon. And, of course, Colon delivered, because that's what he does. He struck out Baseball Jesus to get out of the 5th, worked a spotless 6th, and turned the game over to the regular relievers.

The Mets, meanwhile, certainly had plenty of opportunities to blow the Cubs' doors off, taking advantage of some more sloppy play, particularly from Schwarber in Left. Part of me actually felt bad for Schwarber, who clearly is a fine offensive player but just moves with the elegance of a camel in Left Field and in the last two games this has been exposed to the point of embarrassment. Still, the Mets didn't tack anything on until the 8th inning, when Daniel Murphy hit what is now apparently his daily Home Run, a 2-run shot to put the Mets ahead 8-1. At this point, I'm done trying to explain what's going on with Murphy, because it just defies all logic. But then again, that seems to be the key trait of being Playoff Chosen. Murphy's entire career has been a red-hot April, then 3 and a half months of hitting .248, and then picking it up over the last 6 weeks. But now he gets into October and he's George Brett. It might be the most well-timed two week hot streak anyone has ever had, ever.

Addison Reed worked a clean 7th for the Mets. Tyler Clippard followed for the 8th, and although he allowed a 2-run Home Run to Baseball Jesus, it was of little consequence. An A-Rod Home Run is what I referred to it as, because it basically padded his stats while having zero effect on the outcome of the game. Jeurys Familia came in for the 9th, which nobody was going to argue with, because even with a 5-run lead and the Cubs and their fans totally demoralized, it wasn't worth taking a chance. Familia gave up a 2-out walk before striking out Dexter Fowler looking and the Mets won the Pennant. The Mets won the Pennant!

Seeing how many different names I mentioned in the last few paragraphs just illustrates my point. Yes, Daniel Murphy was the MVP of the NLCS, and deservedly so, but how many other players on this team played a part? Wednesday, it was Duda. Tuesday, David Wright and Yoenis Cespedes. Sunday it was Noah Syndergaard and Curtis Granderson. Game 1 was Matt Harvey. And so on, and so forth. Every game, someone is doing something right to tilt things in the Mets favor, and that's what the recipe for Postseason success seems to be.

The Mets, for these 4 games, completely dominated a Cubs team that really had all the makings of a "Team of Destiny." Certainly, as I'd mentioned many times, their fans seemed to have anointed them as such. They had the flashy names, the breakaway Rookie Sensation, the Pitcher that dominated everyone for months, the rabid fan base—they really were The Hot Team coming in to this series, and the Mets just stoned them completely. The Mets scored runs in the 1st inning in each of the 4 games, and not once did the Cubs ever have a lead. In fact, in the 36 innings of the NLCS, the Mets led for 34 of them. When the Mets clearly needed to come out, make a statement and play their best Baseball of the year, they delivered from start to finish and the reward, of course, is that now they get to go to the World Series.

I'd watched the game at an establishment with some friends and afterward, after some brief reveling, got in a taxi home. The driver asked me if I'd watched the game, and for whatever reason this caused me to open up and start waxing poetic about how I'd been rooting for the Mets for 30 years and I'd watched a lot of games and how in recent years it had been really difficult to be a Mets fan. I mean, you just have to go back over the 9 seasons of this blog just to see how bad things have been at times. But through it all, I and many other Mets fans remained unwavered in our love for this snaffulous team. The Mets are a team that was founded on fans that always believed. How often in some odd moment did I find myself thinking about the Mets and how it might be when they finally turn the corner and get good again. How would it be when they win a Pennant? What's it going to be like to see these guys back in the World Series? Someday, it was going to happen again. Right? If you believe it, it has to.

Believe it! That someday is finally here. And it's better than I imagined it would be.

Not Quite There Just Yet

It takes 11 wins in the Postseason for a team to win a World Series Championship. The Mets are now more than halfway home.

I can't, in all honesty, say that at the beginning of the NLCS that I thought the Mets would run out to a 3-games-to-none lead in the series. But, by virtue of simply stepping on the Cubs' throats last night at Wrigley Field, that's what they did. Jacob deGrom deftly managed his way through 7 innings of work on yet another night when early on it looked like 5 innings would be a moral victory. Offensively, the Mets got their daily Home Run from Daniel Murphy, and also some key hits and clutch baserunning from Yoenis Cespedes and David Wright. The Mets continued to take advantage of a few breaks, manufactured the lead runs late in the game and held on for a 5-2 victory.

This was, once again, a game that I was late in arriving to for reasons involving prior commitments. The last time this happened, Jacob deGrom was pitching in a game of massive importance on the road, battling through some early struggles and eventually finding himself. deGrom got an early lead because the Mets came out hacking and jumped on Kyle Hendricks, one of the lesser Cubs starters, and scored one in the first when Yoenis Cespedes doubled in David Wright. deGrom, however, gave up a Home Run to Kyle Schwarber and went on to slog through a 29-pitch 1st inning. the Home Run wasn't so concerning since Schwarber happens to be one of the hottest hitters on the planet right now. Fortunately, the Mets have the equally hot Daniel Murphy, who continued this mind-boggling Postseason resurgence by swatting his 3rd Home Run of the series in the 3rd inning. But Jorge Soler re-tied the game in the 4th with another solo Home Run.

The Cubs, at this point, removed Hendricks from the game, not so much because he'd been pitching poorly, but because at this point the Cubs just needed to hold the Mets where they were if they wanted to get themselves back in the series and my guess is that Joe Maddon figured he just had to throw different looks at the Mets every time through the lineup. Thus, he began a parade of 7 pitchers for the night by bringing in Clayton Richard, the Padres castoff, and got himself through the 5th. Fat-faced Trevor Cahill entered in the 6th inning and dug his own hole by allowing Cespedes to single, move up on of all things a sacrifice from Lucas Duda, steal 3rd and then score when Miguel Montero unconscionably couldn't block an inning-ending 3rd strike on Michael Conforto. Only by sheer dumb luck did the Mets not extend their lead; Wilmer Flores' sinking line drive to right got past a diving Soler and rolled clear to the wall where it got stuck in the nefarious Ivy and ruled a ground-rule double.

That, of course, was simply the beginning of the Cubs' self-destruction. In the 7th, their entire operation just melted down completely in the sort of sequence that would have typified the Mets of a few years ago. Travis Wood came in the game to try and get the lefty sequence of hitters out and although he got Granderson, David Wright followed with a double. Murphy followed and, no, he didn't hit a Home Run, but what he did was similarly effective as his slow ground ball was fielded by Baseball Jesus, who couldn't grip the ball and that hesitation allowed Murphy to beat the play at 1st. Cespedes followed and Maddon again changed pitchers, this time bringing in Russ Mother Justin Grimm. Grimm got what he needed, a fly ball at someone, except that someone was Schwarber, who apparently plays Left Field in the style of Todd Hundley. Schwarber got a read on the ball but when he attempted to catch it, he instead allowed the ball to clank off his wrist, allowing Wright to score and Murphy to reach 3rd. Laughably, this was scored a hit. Duda followed by hitting a hard grounder right to Rizzo at 1st, and to his credit, Rizzo did absolutely everything he could to try to prevent the run from scoring, but for the 2nd time in 3 games, Montero made no effort to try to block the plate and Murphy instead simply beat the play at home.

By the way, while all this was going on, deGrom had settled down and settled in, and after allowing Soler's Home Run stopped the Cubs cold and managed to get himself some length out of a start where early on it appeared he'd be done after the 5th inning. Somehow, he willed his way through 7 sharp innings, because that's just what he does. And instead of a short outing and exposing the lesser part of the Mets bullpen, he instead bridged things straight to Tyler Clippard, who gave up a double and nothing else in the 8th, and Jeurys Familia, who in this game once again only needed to get 3 outs to finish off the Cubs and lock down this 5-2 Mets victory.

So...yeah. If you're dumbfounded right now, you're not alone. Incredibly, the Mets are now one win away from not only moving on to the next round, but sweeping the Cubs outright. Of course, everything you're reading right now is talking about parallels between the Cubs and the 2004 Red Sox, and yes, in a position like this hearing about that sort of stuff scares the shit out of me. But the Mets seem to be a better put-together team than the 2004 Yankees, and the way the starting pitching has just whipped the Cubs so far makes me believe deep down that they can't come back. But, Baseball is funny and stranger things have happened. We're not there yet.

Regardless, it's hard to not be ecstatic about the way these first three games have gone. The Mets have basically played flawless baseball to this point in the series and the Cubs really haven't, particularly last night. The Mets have been able to take advantage of whatever breaks they could get and while the Cubs seem like the kind of team that could do that too, the Mets just haven't given them any breaks. Through 3 games, the Cubs have never had a lead in the series, and only tonight was the game even tied at a score beyond 0-0. The Mets have effectively buzzsawed the Cubs at every avenue and at least in this series, they seem to be playing more cohesively and cleanly than they've played at any point this season. No, we're not there yet. They still have to win one more game, whether it's tonight or any of the next four games. If we've learned anything from the past, it would be a good thing for the Mets to just wrap it all up tonight.

Is this really happening?

Attack Of The Playoff Chosen

Sunday night's game was the Mets first home playoff game this season that I didn't attend, for a variety of reasons ranging from I was still recovering from freezing my ass off on Saturday, to life was getting in the way of my Baseball, to I wasn't terribly crazy about the pitching matchup. The Mets Game 1 victory on Saturday night was of paramount importance considering the Cubs were throwing the suddenly-unhittable Jake Arrieta on Sunday. Sure, the Mets would send Noah Syndergaard to the mound, who's no slouch in his own right, but he didn't come close to Arrieta's exploits, at least not yet. But as good as Arrieta was this season, that seemed to matter very little to Daniel Murphy and Curtis Granderson, as the pair struck early and often, leaving the Cubs and their ace dazed and in an early hole from which they were unable to recover. Syndergaard, on the other hand, dazzled both with his pitching and his blond locks flowing in that late-October breeze and he, combined with 4 relievers, shut the Cubs down again by a 4-1 score to give the Mets a 2-0 lead in the NLCS.

Since I wasn't at the game, this was actually the first time I'd ever have a chance to see Playoffs Citi Field on TV. I'm still not used to this whole TBS thing; as I'd mentioned before, the only redeeming thing seems to be that Ron Darling is the color guy, but Ernie Johnson is probably only half a rung up the ladder from Joe Buck, which makes things kind of painful. On the other hand, their pregame show features Pedro Martinez, and basically all anyone needs to say to that end is "Pedro Martinez" and I'm already entertained. I hadn't actually noticed until the game was underway last night that TBS had a whole booth set up out in Center Field, otherwise I might have suggested going out to meet Pedro, or at least give him the finger-waving gesture he used to do. Last night, Pedro kicked off the broadcast by picking up a Norse hammer and screaming "THOOORRRR!!!" and my night was complete. Or at least my pregame was complete.

Entertainment aside, there was still a game to be played and it was up to Noah Syndergaard to follow the lead that Harvey set on Saturday night and the hope was to at least try to hang with Arrieta as best he could. He started out just fine in this game, he gave up a 2-out single to Baseball Jesus in the 1st but otherwise struck out Kyle Schwarber and Anthony Rizzo. So that was a fine start.

Then, there was Jake Arrieta. I know very little about Arrieta other than he was a prospect that flopped as an Oriole and then blossomed as a Cub. He kind of came out of nowhere to have a decent year last season, but then this year turned into some sort of weird Kershaw clone. I've arbitrarily decided that Arrieta is totally humorless, just a total stick in the mud. I can attribute this to a few reasons: 1) He constantly walks around with a puss on his face. 2) His oversized beard makes him look even surlier. 3) He looks like Billy Joel. Also, I've never seen him say anything particularly interesting in an interview, and even after he threw a shutout in the NL Wildcard Game, he had a rather milquetoast response when someone spoke to him. Even if none of this is true, the Mets probably took care of that by handing him his ass in the 1st inning. Arrieta probably wasn't used to being ambushed like that, since teams seem to have been capitulating to him over the past several months, but the Mets had no interest in that. Curtis Granderson led off by whacking a single through the overshifted infield. David Wright followed by blasting a double over Dexter Fowler's head to score the game's first run. Then, the new Mr. October, Daniel Murphy, followed by taking a curve off his shoetops and tucking it inside the Right Field foul pole for a Home Run, because why not? When you're Playoff Chosen, you hit Home Runs off of every Cy Young Award candidate, and before Arrieta knew what had hit him, he was 3 runs in the hole.

With a cushion, Syndergaard then went right back to work. Chris Coghlan made a bid to hit one out on a 2-strike pitch in the top of the 2nd, but Curtis Granderson put on his Endy Chavez pants and went over the fence to make the catch. In the 3rd, Syndergaard spared any similar theatrics by striking out the side, each pitch filthier than the one before it.

The Mets tacked on a run in the last of the 3rd, when Curtis Granderson walked, stole 2nd after Wright struck out, stole 3rd after Murphy was intentionally walked (and this is how badly Murphy's gotten in everyone's heads—he was intentionally walked by the guy who's probably going to win a Cy Young Award this year in front of Cespedes), and then scored when Cespedes reached on an infield hit.

Arrieta, after appearing close to being run out of the building, did settle down after this, and in fact the Mets wouldn't score a run the rest of the night. The question, then, was could the Cubs somehow chip away and get back into the game. But they couldn't. Syndergaard sufficiently stepped on their throats in the 4th and 5th, and only in the 6th, when Baseball Jesus doubled home Fowler, did they mount anything of consequence. Ratso Rizzo followed and at this point Terry Collins decided to move to his bullpen to try to bring this one home. This made sense, I suppose. Syndergaard had reached 101 pitches by this point and it wasn't worth taking a chance with Rizzo up. That being said, the choice of Jon Niese certainly wasn't what I'd call inspiring, but Niese did what was asked of him, striking out Rizzo and ending the inning.

From there, the game continued to fall into order, as Collins actually played this one by the book and used Addison Reed in the 7th, Tyler Clippard in the 8th, and Jeurys Familia in the 9th (and after 6-out and 4-out Saves, I'm sure Familia liked being able to get a traditional Save) and the trio combined for 2 hits and 0 walks in 3 innings as the Mets won this game, I won't say with ease, because at this time of year there is no ease, but they won the game 4-1.

So now, everyone's got to be feeling really good, heading off to Chicago with 2 wins in their pockets already and now gearing up to face the weaker part of their rotation. I still feel leery about going to Chicago, just because of it being in front of their crowd and their mojo and because dumb things have a tendency to happen at Wrigley Field, but the Mets still have their guy, Jacob deGrom, going in Game 3 and Steven Matz ready for Game 4. Plus, there's at least one guy in the Mets lineup who really likes hitting in Wrigley Field, and for his career, he's hitting .369/.406/.631 with 4 Home Runs and 9 RBI in 18 games at the friendly confines. That, of course, is Daniel Murphy, as if he needed any more impetus to keep his magic carpet afloat.

Still, even though the Mets are halfway to their goal two games into the series, I have a feeling that this is far from over. Teams don't get this far without having some ability to get off the mat and fight back when things aren't going their way and the Cubs certainly seem like a team that's not going to just fade out at the hands of several hard-throwing starting pitchers. They've got an uphill climb, no doubt, but stranger things have happened in Baseball. Their Manager, Joe Maddon, said what they need are several 1-game winning streaks, and that's probably a good way for the Mets to look at it too. At this late part of the season, it behooves everyone to do whatever it takes to win the game you're in right now and then worry about tomorrow when you have to. It's easier to view things that way when you're in the thick of it as a fan, too—do whatever you have to do to get yourself through the game and then worry about the next morning the next morning. Lord knows that's how I'll be when I wake up.

D Turns To C

It was really cold at Citi Field on Saturday Night. It was the sort of weather you expected for a game in late October, a bit of that early April Night Game chill, combined with the fire that comes along with the Postseason. That is to say, of course, that it was really cold, but nobody cared. Put on an extra layer and enjoy the show. 

The further you go into the Playoffs, the greater the level of intensity. That's not really saying much, but it's been a while since we've seen this in demonstration in these parts. There's a much more frenetic energy to the NLDS; I've seen that magnified this year by being at both home games, and I can tell you that I felt much more on edge prior to those two games. I suppose it has to do with the fact that both players and fans are still trying to feel their way through this thing, and also the 5-game Division Series seems to come and go in a bit of a blink. That being said, the 7 days that the NLDS encompassed felt like 2 or 3 weeks. Now that we're in the Championship Series, where there's 7 games scheduled over 9 days, these 9 days will probably feel like a month and the deeper into this we get, the intensity level will continue to rise. 

There was a good amount of intensity at Game 1 of the NLCS last night. I'd call it less anxiety, which is what I was feeling last week, and more a general desire to scream really loud for an extended period of time. Game 1 isn't so much a "do-or-die" anxious feeling, it's more of a "Let's make a statement and get off on the right foot" feeling, and with that in mind, the Mets took advantage of a fired-up home crowd and a fired-up Matt Harvey and rolled to a 4-2 victory to give them a 1-0 lead in the series.

As it was a Saturday, I wasn't sitting at work bouncing my legs all day to get out to the stadium. I could move at my own pace, which was nice, although I still left for the game at around 5:15, a good 3 hours before game time. Part of this is because I don't know what the hell to do with myself, part of it is to beat the crowd and do whatever needs to be done before the game starts. I met George at around 6:30, in front of the portable Budweiser Beer garden that had sprung up outside the stadium, went in, collected my 3rd Rally Towel (quite a pile is developing) and went upstairs. 

Citi Field this week has been a mass of humanity at every game. I know there's more open space to move around here than there was at Shea Stadium, but at capacity, Shea Stadium's 57,333 didn't feel quite as full as the 44,287 that were on hand last night. I'd noticed a smattering of Cubs fans on hand; it seemed inevitable that there would be a few, however unlike in July, when they kind of took over and talked a lot of trash, they were real quiet now. The specter of what's going on for them is probably about as overwhelming as it is for us Mets fans, so while they've probably got their own level of anxiety, it doesn't really read on a road game, particularly when you're outnumbered by about 100:1. To wit, while I saw a few Cubs fans on the train, and a few outside the stadium, and a few inside the stadium, they kind of blended in and faded away once everyone sat down and the game started. 

Of course, once we got through the ceremonial stuff (which I've been kind enough to record for posterity, loyal readers can click through here as opposed to embedding), there was a game to be played, and if the Mets were looking to get off on the right foot in the series, they did a really good job of accomplishing this. For one, Matt Harvey came out with his A+ stuff, probably both determined to shut everyone up about innings and pitches and questions about his character and any other crap people want to say about him, and also fuming over his poor showing last week. I've mentioned a few times that Harvey often looks like he pitches with smoke coming out of his ears and last night certainly was one of those nights. With the spotlight on him, Harvey pitched the kind of game that you expect him to pitch, essentially stopping a red-hot Cubs lineup cold and holding them to 2 runs over 7.2 innings, allowing all of 4 hits and 9 strikeouts and let's face it, if Juan Lagares gets a better jump on Castro's fly ball in the 5th inning, that's 1 run and 3 hits. Harvey ruled the night, and were Baseball not such a genteel game with less of a war-like atmosphere than an NFL game, Harvey might have come storming off the mound at the end of the game and delivered an interview that sounds kind of like this. 

While Harvey let his pitching shut up the non-believers, the Mets went out and tried to crack Jon Lester. Of course, it was Daniel Murphy who fired the first shot, taking a 1-1 pitch with 2 outs in the 1st and drilling it off the face of the Pepsi Porch, which of course got everyone alternately roaring and wondering what the fuck is going on with Daniel Murphy. I'd be more surprised by all this if he weren't Playoff Chosen, but if it wasn't clear that he was beforehand, after last night it must be. His HR in the 1st inning was not only his 4th of the Postseason and his 3rd in 3 games, but it was his 3rd off a Lefthanded pitcher. Go Figure.  

It was, then, back to the pitchers for the next several innings. Harvey was just mowing the Cubs down and was actually perfect through 4 innings. Lester was good, too, weaving in and out of mini-jams in the 2nd and 4th. In the 5th, Harvey broke, and it was probably my fault. Following the end of the 4th, I needed a bathroom break and as the inning ended, I made a mad dash to try and beat the inevitable line, but I was unsuccessful. I was still on line with Howie Rose on the call when Harvey hit Anthony Rizzo on an 0-2 pitch, which I assume happened because of Rizzo's propensity to stand on the plate, and then Starlin Castro followed with a fly ball that Juan Lagares usually catches 99 times out of 100, except that this was the 100th time and he misjudged it and couldn't recover until the ball was over his head. Rizzo scored, the game was tied, and only then did I get back to my seat and George told me I couldn't leave my seat for the rest of the game. Quite honestly, I'm superstitious enough to buy into that, so I was planted for the duration. Harvey was mostly undaunted by this turn of events, and although Javier Baez singled through the hole with 1 out, Yoenis Cespedes came up with a clutch defensive play, throwing a strike home and nailing Castro at the plate by a good 10 feet, enough of a distance that Castro couldn't try some dopey trick slide to get around the tag. 

The Mets offense was undaunted, too, and with 1 out in the 5th, they got back-to-back singles from Wilmer Flores and Juan Lagares, and although Harvey couldn't get a proper bunt down and Flores was forced at 3rd, Curtis Granderson continued his solid postseason by flaring a single in front of Dexter Fowler to score Lagares and give the Mets the lead once again. In the 6th inning, Travis d'Arnaud lit the house on fire by blasting a majestic Home Run through the teeth of the wind and off the Home Run apple to extend the Mets lead to 3-1. The Mets finally knocked Lester out of the game in the 7th when Lagares singled, moved to 2nd on a sacrifice, and, with the Cubs infield shifted way over for Granderson, stole 3rd. This proved to be a key steal, because Granderson followed by lofting a fly ball to not-so-deep Left Field. Kyle Schwarber, the oafish Rookie Slugger with no position, made the catch and made a decent throw home, but Miguel Montero, who'd been inserted in the game that inning, failed to do a decent job of blocking the plate, and Lagares simply slid in under his attempted tag and the Mets opened up their lead to 4-1. 

Harvey, meanwhile, kept the Cubs off the board in the 6th and 7th, shaking off some minor irritants like taking a Dexter Fowler line drive off his shoulder (and then demanding the trainers get the hell away from him) and a 2-on, 1-out jam in the 7th. Although there was some brief action in the bullpen, Harvey came out for the 8th inning as well, and why not? He'd kept his pitch count down the majority of the evening—the Cubs helped him out plenty by hacking away—and got the first two batters in the 8th inning before Schwarber reached him for a mammoth Home Run. That was mostly a minor irritant since it drew the Cubs closer, but in the grand scheme of things it wasn't so bad. But Terry Collins came out to get him there, and while it was a sour ending, you can't argue with the end result of Harvey's outing. The Mets needed him to pitch a big game and he certainly did that, and the crowd responded with a rousing ovation as he left the mound. 

Jeurys Familia then came in and although he walked Baseball Jesus, he then got Rizzo to ground out to finish the 8th, and then in the 9th, with everyone on their feet, he got the first two batters before allowing a single to Miguel Montero. That, of course, got everyone good and nervous, and Tommy LaStella followed by hitting a smash toward second that might have been ticketed for another hit, but Daniel Murphy again showed his magic touch by making a diving stop and throwing LaStella out to end the game and give the Mets a leg up in the NLCS with a 4-2 victory.

Harvey, of course, was the talk of the game afterward and deservedly so. I keep saying it, but Harvey's performance was of enormous importance for an infinite number of reasons. Most of the talk going in to the series was the fact that the Cubs were favored, and they had the hot hand, and sure, we can't know how the rest of the series will play out, but at least for this night, it was the Mets pitching that came up big time, and for the Mets to win, that's what needed to happen. And the massive human traffic jam that ensued following the game in the stairwells and on the Subway was much happier than the silent murmur that followed Game 4 of the NLDS. 

So, the Mets now have one game in their pocket, which is helpful considering they'll be facing the hottest pitcher on the planet in Jake Arrieta tonight. But the Mets will counter with their own fireballer, Noah Syndergaard, and if he's up to snuff in this game, it won't be easy for the Cubs either.

A Mid-October Night's Dream

I was walking down 19th Street near Park Avenue yesterday afternoon, just going to the bank and other assorted, work-related errands, when I saw a real giant of a man, kind of Nordic-looking, with bright blond hair walking south on Park. A second look revealed that it was, in fact, Noah Syndergaard. Unless you followed the Mets or knew what he looked like, I suppose you wouldn't recognize him out of uniform. I debated whether or not to say something to him, and I decided, what the hell. The conversation went something like this:

ME: Hey! Great job last night! You're awesome!

NOAH SYNDERGAARD: (Nods) Thank you.

And he kept walking, and I went to the bank.

But my day was then complete.

Syndergaard, I suppose, might not be so used to getting recognized on the street now, but he may have to get used to that (others might go incognito altogether). Now that the Mets are among the final 4 teams playing in this 2015 season, they're starting to get a little notice.

I'd say "notice," but not really "respect."

When the Mets made the playoffs, I read an overwhelming number of articles, the summation of which was "The Mets are a nice little story, but they can't hang with the Dodgers," and the Mets were pretty much universally picked to lose the NLDS, because 15 of 20 ESPN analysts can't be wrong. But they were.

Now, they're here against the Cubs, and I guess on some level the entire world is rooting for the Cubs because they're the Cubs and they're eternally the sad-sack team in Major League Baseball. But all this attention and all those Rookies bombing Home Runs all over the place have turned them into the favorites. Dare I say it, but given the streak they got on down the final two months of the season, and the fact that they've got the most unhittable of unhittable Pitchers, they're The Hot Team right now. And you know what happens when anyone deigns to step up against The Hot Team.

The Mets played the Cubs 7 times this season and lost all 7. But the Mets were a different team back then. These games were in May and July and the Mets of May and July wouldn't have made it this far. Anyone who wants to look at those games as some barometer of how this series will go is welcome to do so, but it won't do you much good. Maybe the Cubs are similar, but the Mets are not.

Still, the Cubs are heavy favorites, and I guess that makes sense. Consider how public they were this season. They were on Sunday Night Baseball basically every other week, and every time they were, Jake Arrieta threw a No Hitter and Baseball Jesus Kris Bryant hit 3 Home Runs. The Mets, on the other hand, received almost no National exposure, and when they did, it was usually against the Yankees, and the Mets usually made asses of themselves. So if you didn't know any better, you'd assume this was a mismatch and the Cubs would wipe the Mets out completely.

But it's never quite that simple, and as I've been saying about the Mets all year long, this is a good Baseball team and nobody wants to admit it. They're far better than anyone will or wants to give them credit for, and that's one of the reasons they've made it this far. Just listen to the Cubs fans all over the place. They're licking their chops right now and in their minds, they've already crowned themselves World Series Champions. But these games have to be played and, well, the Mets stand a very good chance of giving the Cubs fits. Lest I remind you what happened back in 2006, when the Mets played a Cardinals team that was nothing?

The Mets surely don't have the offense to hang with the Cubs and their Galaxy of Mashers, but what they do have are four Pitchers, Jacob deGrom, Matt Harvey, Noah Syndergaard and Steven Matz, who can be counted on to give the Mets a good outing and at absolute worst keep them in games. The Cubs rotation is not as deep. Unlike in a 5-game series, the Cubs can't line themselves up to have Lester and Arrieta start every other game and even so, when the Dodgers did that with Kershaw and Greinke, they still lost. This is the sort of stuff that can turn a series upside down. The Cubs more or less floated here by bombing the Cardinals C-level pitching into submission, while the Mets had to ride their pitching and create their own breaks facing Kershaw and Greinke 4 times in 5 games. They've already had their crucible. The Cubs haven't had one yet.

Point is, I'm not making any sort of a prediction here because whatever happen will happen and regardless of who I pick you all know who I'm rooting for. But for those of you who must, this series isn't as cut and dry as everything you might read. And for you Cubs fans that think you have this thing won, don't get too comfortable. This Postseason has already shown us how general logic can and will get thrown out the window.

The Saga Continues...

Every Postseason, I write something about how October is a different beast, and things that happen a certain way during the regular season never seem to follow the same script. Players who are usually counted on to come through scuffle and other, lesser players step into the spotlight because it's simply their time. The Playoffs chose them.

Your Playoff Chosen Met for 2015 is none other than Daniel Murphy.

To say that I've given Daniel Murphy a hard time this season would be kind. I'd say that over the past several years, I've raked Murphy over the coals countless times, and deservedly so. He's been here for a long time and for the most part has if nothing else been there on the team. Never has he done anything special and often has he done things that make you scratch your head and wonder what the hell he's doing in the Major Leagues, because he makes mistakes that a veteran ballplayer shouldn't make. It's nothing more than a desire to perform well, but with Murphy, things like that just never seemed to work.

And then the calendar flips to October and all of a sudden everything falls into place for Daniel Murphy, because of course it did. Murphy hit Home Runs off of Clayton Kershaw in Games 1 and 4 of the NLDS, in Game 3, he drove in a key run off another lefty, he played mistake-free in the field, and all of that was merely the prelude to what he did in the decisive Game 5 last night. And that's the beauty of Major League Baseball.

Murphy interjected himself into the game rather early. After replay showed Curtis Granderson beat out a ground ball into an overshifted infield, Murphy came up and drove a Zack Greinke offering over everyone's head, off the wall for an RBI double to give the Mets an early lead. Yes, he was stranded there. But if nothing else he'd broken the ice and made the statement that even if the Mets had looked lifeless on Tuesday night, they weren't dead yet.

This was important, because Jacob deGrom had to battle and battle hard to get himself through this game. The Dodgers banged out a series of ringing hits in the last of the 1st inning, plating two runs of their own and appeared ready for the kill before deGrom got his bearings and struck out Yasmani Grandal and Enrique Hernandez. deGrom, of course, had to get his bearings back all night long lest the game get away from him, but whenever he absolutely needed to make a pitch, he did. 2 men on in the 2nd, he struck out Seager and Adrian Gonzalez. 1st and 3rd in the 3rd, he got a Double Play. More of the same in the 4th and 5th.

Meanwhile, the Mets still had to try and solve Greinke, and of course Daniel Murphy was the one who did it, because, again, that's Baseball, and he'd been chosen. Murphy led off the 4th inning with a single, his 2nd hit of the night. Cespedes flied out, but Lucas Duda subsequently drew a walk, which tells you absolutely nothing about the intricacy of what actually happened. The Dodgers, as is their wont, swung their infielders way over to the right side with Duda at the plate, essentially leaving 3rd base uncovered. When Duda took Ball 4, it seems that rather than return to their traditional positions, Corey Seager and Justin Turner decided to kick the dirt and hang their heads. Murphy made some sort of mental note about this, and as he approached 2nd base, he decided to go for it, took off for 3rd base.

Now, had Daniel Murphy tried to pull off a stunt like this in the regular season, he probably would have been thrown out by 20 feet and we'd spend the remainder of the game talking about "The Typical Murphy Play," where he tries to do too much and ends up making a mistake.

But because it's the Playoffs, and Murphy was chosen, nobody's paying attention, Murphy's safe by miles and then he scores the tying run when Travis d'Arnaud hits a sacrifice fly.

And, of course, for good measure, Murphy comes up in the 6th, takes a middle-in mistake from Greinke and blasts it out into the Right Field seats and gives the Mets the lead they'd been chasing since the 1st inning.

Now with a lead came the tension, because there were still 12 outs to get and deGrom hadn't thrown a clean inning all game. Still, although it seemed like there were 3 or 4 times when it looked like he was going to cave, and certainly Noah Syndergaard appeared to be warming up every inning between the 3rd and the 6th, he just kept on plowing through and eventually he got through the 6th inning, and of course that 6th inning was his only clean inning. By that point, I'd started thinking about how to piece together the final 3 innings. Syndergaard, in my opinion, would have been a good choice were it the 4th or 5th. But deGrom somehow got through 6 and now I was thinking that the Mets would be wise to just throw the sink out there in the 7th, and hope someone can get some outs, and then let Familia throw the 8th and 9th. Or maybe just let Colon go out there and work his magic. Or just say screw it and tell Familia to get a 9-out Save. But Syndergaard ended up being the call, and it seems that warming up so many times really didn't bother him much because outside of walking Gonzalez, which was probably the safe thing to do, and then he made Justin Turner, who by that point had 3 hits in the game and was hitting about .970 for the series, look silly on a curve in the dirt for an inning-ending strikeout.

Syndergaard looked so good, in fact, that I then mused that maybe HE should go back out there for the 8th. Collins, of course, disagreed with me, which is just as well and the results proved once again why he's a Major League Manager and I'm sitting on my couch picking my nose. Familia came in for the 8th, in a situation where a double-switch might have been in order with the pitcher's spot due up 5th in the 9th inning. But the guy he was double-switching in, Juan Lagares, hit before the Pitcher's spot anyway. I'm assuming Collins just said "Fuck it," and went with his guy. Familia retired the Dodgers on 9 pitches in the 8th. Of course, the Mets then got a couple of men on in the 9th inning, resulting in Familia having to take a turn at bat, but the way the game was going at that point it was probably more advantageous to have Familia in the game as opposed to cocking around with the rest of the bullpen with no margin for error just to get to him. Familia struck out, went back out to the mound and polished off the Dodgers with another 1-2-3 inning, finishing things off by quick-pitching Howie Kendrick for the final strikeout and, amazingly, sending the Mets off to the NLCS with a 3-2 victory.

That did happen, didn't it?

That seems to be something I've been saying a lot about the Mets recently, but it's happened. They went from nowhere to Division Champions to a do-or-die game on the road and they won that too. They won with their best pitcher pitching with less than his best stuff. They won by virtue of the heady play of a guy known best for being decidedly un-heady. They won because their #2 starter was turned into a 1-inning terminator for a night. And they won because the Closer who wasn't supposed to be the Closer when this thing started came into the game needing 6 outs to get the biggest Save of his life, and Goddammit, he went and did it. In the Playoffs, you need not only the random luck but the skill to take advantage of it, and that's basically how the Mets won this series. They took advantage of whatever break they got and that's how they were able to tilt things in their favor.

So, the story continues for the Mets. Even though 24 hours ago I felt truly miserable at the prospect of the game and went through the day on Thursday suffering the side effects of Pennant Fever, everything of course felt much better after they locked down the win. Next, then, is the Cubs, and perhaps these are two teams that could be mirror images of each other, at least considering the way they've been put together. To say nothing of the spate of Cubs fan run-ins I'm sure to be subjected to over the coming days. Have I mentioned I'm not especially fond of the Cubs?

Elation To Deflation

Tuesday night was the 7th Mets Postseason game I'd attended. Through Monday, the Mets had won all 6 of the prior games. Unhappily, I had my Postseason Loss Cherry popped in totally deflating fashion as the Mets were the unlucky recipient of a couple of ill-placed batted balls and the pitching of Clayton Kershaw, as they lost, 3-1, and failed to close out the Dodgers in Game 4 of the NLDS at home.

There's so much that could be said about this game and yet in reality very little that could have gone differently. Kershaw, pitching on short rest, basically mastered the Mets, took the crowd out of the game and refused to let them get back into it. Prior to the game, there was that same frenzied, frenetic energy pulsing through the stadium. But it felt a bit more nervous than it did on Monday night. I certainly felt a bit more nervous. I and probably everyone else knew that the Mets were in a tenuous position. Win, of course, and the series was theirs, and a date with Destiny's Darlings, the Chicago Cubs on Saturday. Lose, and it's not over, certainly, but instead of a few days to recharge, instead a cross-country trip back to Los Angeles and a game Thursday night against Zack Greinke.

But a lot had to go right in order for the Mets to win. It would mean beating Kershaw for the second time in 4 days. Not impossible, but difficult enough. It would also mean that Steven Matz, making but his 7th Major League start, would have to get the ice in his veins extra cold in order to stand with Kershaw. Early on, he did, as the two matched zeroes through the first two innings. Matz got through the first with relative ease. Kershaw muddled a little bit, and perhaps the Mets could have broken through, but aside from a 1-out walk to David Wright, the best the Mets could muster was making Kershaw throw 18 pitches.

The game, for all intents and purposes, was decided in the 3rd. Kershaw singled with 1 out, and was subsequently forced out at 2nd by Enrique Hernandez. Seemed as though Matz had it under control, even after Howie Kendrick hit a 47-hop single up the middle that barely snuck by Wilmer Flores (perhaps Tejada fields it? Debateable. Were it hit slower, certainly) and moved Hernandez to 3rd. Matz then got Adrian Gonzalez to hit a little floater to Center, perfectly placed between the Cespedes-Lagares-Flores Bermuda triangle and, groan, in for a hit to score Hernandez. Justin Turner, who's simply murdered the Mets in this series, followed by drilling a ball down into the Left Field corner, plating Kendrick and Gonzalez and placing the hands of everyone in Citi Field firmly under their own respective asses.

True, I mused, the Mets were down 3-0 the night before early in the game. However, it wasn't against Kershaw.

Kershaw only improved as the game went on, and for as much as the fans wanted to get back into the game, it wasn't happening. The Mets didn't do themselves any favors either; where in Game 1 they made him work and throw a lot of pitches early in the game, this time they were hacking, flailing and generally helping him work through things quickly. Only when Daniel Murphy, who apparently just owns Kershaw, hit a Home Run in the 4th did we come to life. Otherwise, it was pretty much deadsville through 7 innings.

Fortunately, Matz allowed no further damage after the 3rd inning, although his location slipped a bit and he found himself in trouble multiple times before departing after 5 innings. Bartolo Colon, who's filled the Sid Fernandez role to a tee in this series, came in for the 6th and stopped the Dodgers cold for two innings once again. Colon, who was simply heroic working in a bridge role on Monday and again last night, did his best to get the crowd back into the game, but once again, Kershaw took everyone right back out of it.

In the 7th, Cespedes led off with an infield single off of Kershaw's glove, and that got everybody up again. The 7th was when Kershaw came unglued in Game 1, too. If only the Mets could sustain something here...but it didn't happen. d'Arnaud, who's just missing pitches, fouled out, Duda got a hold of a pitch and hit it well to Center, but not well enough, and Flores could only ground out.

Kershaw departed in the 8th, after only 93 pitches, and I was shocked that Mattingly removed him there. The Mets weren't solving him, certainly not with the bottom of their lineup coming up, and at 3-1, the game certainly wasn't out of reach. And if he was going to pull Kershaw there, why not just go right to his closer, Kenley Jansen? But instead, he went for Chris Hatcher, and immediately the Mets countered with a pair of Pinch Hitters, in Michael Conforto and Kelly Johnson, but neither of them could solve anything. Curtis Granderson worked a walk, though, and only then did Mattingly go to Jansen. Jansen, however, was wild, as he can sometimes be, and he walked Wright, and if there was ever an opportunity for the Mets in this game, this was it. And it was Daniel Murphy, who I and everyone else has killed for years for one reason or another. But if he could come through here, that might erase everything. I think everyone sensed this, maybe not the historical part, but certainly the opportunity part, and everyone was whipped into a proper frenzy, chanting and screaming and imploring Murphy to come through, or at least just continue the inning. Murphy worked the count full and had the runners in motion before he swung and hit a blooper, headed in a similar spot to Gonzalez's hit in the 3rd. But the ball hung up and was caught. The inning was over. The threat was over. And once again the air was just sucked out of the stadium.

The 9th inning seemed formality, even with the middle of the order coming up. For as much as the scoreboard tried to get everyone to rev up their energy, and for as much as we tried to energize ourselves to try to will the Mets on, the best we could muster was mostly muted agony as Jansen got the Mets in order to finish off the game and send everyone back to Los Angeles for a Thursday Night showdown. Except that 44,000+ people trying to cram down the staircase and onto the Subway at the same time was a bit more than Citi Field was able to accommodate and the resulting human traffic jam resulted in my getting on a train close to 45 minutes after the game had ended (on a normal Tuesday night, I can be out of the stadium and on a 7 in under 10 minutes).

On the one hand, I guess you could say that the story of the game was two bloopers, one that didn't hang up (Gonzalez) and one that did (Murphy). In reality, though, it was Kershaw. Though Kershaw has been maligned for some poor performances in October, you knew that if you gave a guy like him enough chances, eventually he'd come through and he came through big time last night. The Mets and everyone in the building knew that the potential for that to happen was there—perhaps that's why everyone was so anxious—and that's what happened.

So, the season comes down to one game for the Mets now, Thursday night in Los Angeles. Jacob deGrom will get the ball for the Mets, we know that, and probably everyone else within reason is available. Again, it's a deflating loss, and I hate that this is how my Postseason winning streak had to come to an end—or that it had to come to an end at all—but don't lose perspective. The Mets are still alive if nothing else and they'll have their guy going in the 5th game. Of course, Greinke will certainly be equal to the challenge. We already saw these two match up in what turned into a staring contest. There's a pretty good chance that Thursday could go the same way. The team that blinks goes home. The best we can do, I suppose, is try to shake off the blah from last night and re-mobilize ourselves. We owe it to these guys after breaking their asses for six months to get to this point.

The Proper Revenge

Monday night at Citi Field was a night 6 years in the making. Or maybe it was 9 years in the making. However long it was, it proved to be worth the wait. Citi Field made its debut on Baseball's grandest stage and rung itself in in style. The pregame talk of revenge quickly dissolved as the Mets unleashed the Gates of Hell on the Los Angeles Dodgers, setting a club record for runs scored in a Postseason game and grabbing a 2-games-to-1 edge in the NLDS with a rousing 13-7 victory.

I was in attendance—€”how could I not be—with George, 9 years to the day of the last Postseason game I'd attended. Postseason games, and this was my 6th to date, are a different animal from the Tuesday Night Special that I'm so fond of. These games are loud, unruly wars where I spend the entire day leading up to the game feeling like I could run from my office clear out to the stadium just to get to the game. Fans are on every pitch, mostly standing and when something good happens, there's not a cheer, there's a primal roar that rises from the stands. It had been a long time since I'd experienced that.

The game was, of course, scheduled for the somewhat-asinine start time of 8:37pm, and George and I arrived at the scene at around 7pm and already the scene was insane. Think, perhaps, Opening Day times about 50. To say nothing of the fact that these fans, which was on this night was probably about 98% in favor of the Good Guys, were out for blood. They were itching for a fight, and their target was Chase Utley. But Utley never saw the field, instead receiving a proper welcome during the pregame introductions. This was fine, as far as I was concerned. George agreed. Faith and Fear's Greg Prince, who I fortuitously ran into on the Promenade prior to the game, also agreed. The Mets did their best to whip everyone into a frenzy, handing out bright orange Rally Towels and prompting everyone to wave them as TBS came on the air, and even brought Ruben Tejada on the field as the Mets were introduced in a bit of a Willis Reed moment. But the best revenge, I felt, would be if Matt Harvey went out and simply shoved the bats up the Dodgers' asses for 8 innings.

But Harvey proved mortal on this night. Though he got through the 1st unscathed, the Dodgers started ringing hits off him in the 2nd, and loaded the bases with nobody out. The fans, which at this point were bouncing off the walls, were now sitting on their hands, and when Yasmani Grandal singled home two runs and Curtis Granderson's throwing error led to a 3rd run, the air had been sucked out of the building. When things like this happen in the Postseason, it's like an ambush. The air is literally sucked out of the building and the entire stadium gets eerily quiet. Here we were, first home Playoff game in 9 years, Harvey on the mound and he's getting lit up? This wasn't good. Fortunately, he minimized the damage and got out of the inning without allowing anything further.

So, then, the Mets now had to come back from a 3-run deficit against Brett Anderson, who in my opinion was part-reclamation project, part-retread, and represented the weak link in the Dodgers rotation. To say the Mets came out ready to attack him was an understatement. Yoenis Cespedes led off by hitting a little ground ball towards Jimmy Rollins (who also received a warm welcome) and simply outran the throw to 1st. Lucas Duda followed with a flare hit to Center. Travis d'Arnaud shot a hit to left that scored Cespedes. Wilmer Flores then reached on an infield hit, and now we were in business. But Juan Lagares hit into a Fielder's Choice and Harvey struck out, and it seemed like the Mets were going to let a great opportunity go by the wayside. However, Curtis Granderson atoned for his error by smoking the first pitch from Anderson off the fence in Right Center, plating everyone, erasing the deficit and blowing the damn roof off the joint. When I say it was loud, I mean It. Was. LOUD. Loud in a way we've never seen at Citi Field. Remember how the Upper Deck at Shea Stadium used to shake? I swear the Promenade level was shaking. That's the kind of release that was going on at that moment.

The fun was just starting.

Harvey wasn't at his best, but he was good enough. Mechanically, he was completely screwed up, probably because of the long layoff he'd had between games, and not, as some fans seem to feel, that he wasn't ready for Prime Time. Once his teammates got him a lead, he wouldn't let the Dodgers get back up and in the process, the Mets bats continued to light up the scoreboard and light up the "Pyrotechnic display" that was set on top of the scoreboard. In the 3rd inning, Cespedes singled and remained there with 2 outs when Travis d'Arnaud launched one onto the Party deck in Left Field. This one was gone off the bat, one of those classic d'Arnaud jolts when he just squares one up and it sails out into the night. This sealed Anderson's fate for the evening, as by this point he'd been spotted a 3-run lead and handed back twice that.

Things did not improve for the Dodgers as herky-jerky lefty Alex Wood entered the game in the 4th. Lagares led off with a double off the wall in Right-Center, a drive that just kept sailing until it reached the wall. Though Wood rebounded to get Harvey and Granderson, he, or perhaps his manager Don Mattingly decided to play with fire and intentionally walk David Wright. Wright generally rips lefties, yes, but I just had a feeling that he was asking for trouble by walking him in front of Murphy, and Murph for once proved me right by dropping a single in to Left to plate Lagares. At this point, Wood was royally fucked, because he was falling behind hitters, not particularly fooling anyone, and now had to face Yoenis Cespedes, and we sort of all knew what was coming. On 2-2, Cespedes stopped the show by hitting one of his now-trademark Home Runs that looks like it's been shot out of a cannon. Not only was it as much of a no-doubter as d'Arnaud's Home Run, this one was met with gasps moreso than cheers. It landed in the 2nd deck and Cespedes, as is his wont, styled at the plate, flipped his bat and took about a minute rounding the bases. Basically, the ball was fucked, Wood was fucked, the Dodgers were fucked. The Mets had gone from a 3-run ambush to a 10-3 lead and what was a tense affair had turned into more of a pep rally.

From there, things calmed down somewhat. Harvey finished the 5th inning, then turned the ball over to Bartolo Colon, who delighted everyone by striking out the side in the 6th inning. By this point, there wasn't any particular drama in the game, other than fans catcalling Utley, but nonetheless George and I still felt like more runs were needed. Not for any particular reason, just because the Mets had a bullpen and more runs were probably necessary. On the other hand, it was a jovial enough evening that when Adrian Gonzalez hit a Home Run off Colon in the 7th, nobody cared too much. They were too busy booing Utley.

The Mets honored our request in the Bottom of the 7th by plating some more runs off of Pedro Baez. Baez created his own problems by giving up a hit and two walks. Michael Conforto Pinch-hit and hit a Sacrifice Fly, and then Curtis Granderson, who had himself quite a game in his own right, doubled off the Left Field wall to score two more runs, giving him 5 RBI on the night and putting the Mets ahead 13-4.

Addison Reed pitched a solid 8th inning and then Erik Goeddel came in for the 9th inning and promptly got lit up, allowing a 3-run Home Run to Howie Kendrick before needing to be rescued by Jeurys Familia. Familia had no such problems, retiring all three men he faced to close out the Dodgers and close out what was a real barnburner of a game. At 12:24am. Yes, it was late. Yes, once the Mets went up by 9 runs, a lot of fans headed for the exits because it was so late. Yes, George and I both had long trips to our respective homes and arriving before 2am was a dicey proposition. Did we care? Not at all. All that mattered was that the Mets found a way to get up off the mat, shake off the words, the pain and the controversy and win the damn game, and at this time of year, that's really all that matters.

This will, I believe, be remembered as the night that Citi Field finally became "Home" for Mets fans. It's been the de facto home ever since it opened back in 2009, but there's never been that great, magical moment that we can all look back on. For the most part, it's been forgettable teams with nice individual accomplishments mixed in. This 2015 year has been the first time Citi Field was home to a winner, and the first time that those glitzy, overproduced and overhyped Playoff Productions were on hand, and oddball trinkets like rally towels were handed out. The Mets did their job to make sure it was a magical night to be remembered. It was a full team effort, as most of the Mets wins lately tend to be, but it was probably Granderson's double that brought the house down. 9 years of pent-up frustration and anger just came blasting out in that one moment, and it carried, through Cespedes' Home Run into the 2nd deck and basically through the rest of the night. Each of the now 6 Playoff games I've been to has had something oddly unique about it, and this one certainly had plenty of unique moments that I'll continue to carry with me.

But the best part? I get to go back later today!

A Familiar Refrain

The Mets had a golden opportunity to steal a second game of the NLDS in Los Angeles last night, but as we're all well aware now, a series of horrible events conspired to prevent that from happening. In spite of Noah Syndergaard pitching well into the 7th inning, the Dodgers were the recipient of some advantageous umpiring and clutch hitting, grabbed the lead and rolled home for a 5-2 win to even up the NLDS at 1 game each.

Things actually started out wonderfully for the Mets. Noah Syndergaard hit the mound about as amped up as deGrom was on Friday night, touching 101mph on the radar and blowing the Dodgers out of the box. The Mets jumped on Zack Greinke for a pair of 2nd inning Home Runs, the first from Yoenis Cespedes, because you knew that was coming, and the second from Michael Conforto, who showed he was ready for Prime Time right away. Mets lead 2-0, and all is right with the world.

Unfortunately, though they had some opportunities, the Mets never built on this lead. Greinke, who's equally as tough as Kershaw, bounced back from this and stopped the Mets cold the remainder of his 7 innings of work. On the other side, the Dodgers reached Syndergaard for a run in the 4th inning, when Justin Turner, who officially looks like a birthday party decoration, doubled to lead off the inning, and Andre Ethier hit one of his own. But, Syndergaard rebounded, got out of a jam and worked through the 5th and 6th innings without much trouble.

Then, of course, the 7th, which is the cause of all the trouble.

Syndergaard started the inning and struck out Yasmani Grandal, and looked just fine in doing so. But then he was too fine to Enrique Hernandez and walked him. The carcass of Chase Utley followed and although he barely got his bat on the ball, he got just enough to flick it over the head of Daniel Murphy for a single. At over 110 pitches, this was it for Syndergaard, who was removed from the game in favor of Bartolo Colon. This move was questioned, but after 6+ innings of Syndergaard's heat, Colon's craftiness was probably the right idea. I'm all in favor of giving Colon work here so long as he can get guys out. And he did what he needed to do against Howie Kendrick, who hit a screamer up the middle. A DP would have probably been tough even on a clean play since Kendrick runs well, and Daniel Murphy made what could basically be described as a Daniel Murphy toss to 2nd base, leading Tejada to the far side of the bag and forcing him to spin around in order to wind and try to throw to 1st. But, of course, that throw never came off, because just to make sure the Mets didn't turn the DP, Utley basically decided he was Clay Matthews, III and went for the takeout instead of the base. Tejada was completely upended and Utley was assumedly out. Fielder's Choice, run scores, tie game.

Then, of course, everything went haywire. Utley not only slid late and not particularly close to 2nd base, he actually missed 2nd base completely in his attempt to take out Tejada. And, of course, in the process, he not only upended Tejada, but broke the Shortstop's leg in the process. I mean, we already knew what a jackass Utley was before this play, so we didn't need to be reminded. And the ensuing replay was totally botched because whether Tejada touched the bag or not is immaterial. How interference wasn't called on Utley on this play is totally beyond me. We have a case history of plays like this where it took far less to draw an interference call, which would have resulted in an automatic and inning-ending DP. But it wasn't called. I mean, I don't know, I dumb as a post, but it seems to me that when a runner is so aggressive in trying to take out a fielder with a slide he not only misses the base but injures the fielder, wouldn't that kind of be a clue?

So, yeah. Just to turn the knife, the Dodgers end up challenging the call based on some weird technicality involving the neighborhood play, which should have been in play if they weren't going to call interference, and after all that crotch-grabbing and posturing, Utley was deemed safe. Safe! I'm not sure what sort of message the umpires were trying to sell at that point—perhaps martial law—but that basically turned the entire game upside down. The Mets got rooked on the call and you could basically tell Adrian Gonzalez was going to get the big hit before he even stepped to the plate. Whether Colon or Addison Reed were in to face him wouldn't have mattered. Just to make sure, Turner followed by driving in Gonzalez, the Dodgers went ahead 5-2, and that was pretty much that.

It's very easy to be frustrated over a game like this and a call (or in this case non-call) that totally changes the game and screws the Mets over. But let's not lose perspective here. The Mets needed to do one thing, and that was not come back to New York down 0-2. They did that. They won a game and they're coming back home with the series tied 1-1, and on Monday night, they'll have Matt Harvey on the mound and a stadium full of fans that are going to be absolutely roaring. The Dodgers, on the other hand, counter with Brett Anderson, who's not Greinke and not Kershaw. Sure, they had a chance to get greedy and win both games out there but the chances of that happening were, logically, unlikely. That being said, it's now on Harvey to come out on Monday night and pitch like he means it.

More importantly, though, the team needs to forget about this and move on. I know a lot of guys were pretty upset about it, and rightfully so. Whether Utley meant to hurt Tejada or not, he still did and that's going to piss a lot of guys off, and even guys that weren't playing in the game. Again, Utley's an abrasive prick and he's built a career around that, and it's not as though Mets fans liked him anyway. With crisis there is always opportunity and yes, the Mets lost their best defensive infielder, but they still have Wilmer Flores there, who has the potential to make up in offense what he loses in defense. But the worst thing the Mets can do right now is dwell on it and come out on Monday feeling tight and frustrated. This is something that this team has done really well all season long. They've consistently bounced back from tough losses and come back and played strong. This is a testament to Terry Collins, of course, but also to the way the team plays; together and without fear. Resiliency has been a key trait for this team.

It has to be, otherwise we're in a lot of trouble.

Smoke vs. Fire

I hadn't had much to say in the week or so leading up to, finally, the start of the Mets participation in the 2015 Postseason, primarily because I just didn't feel like there was much that needed to be said. On the surface, the Mets' objective was pretty clear: Try to steal a game against one of the Dodgers two Aces in Games 1 and 2 in Los Angeles and basically try to take it from there.

What was getting kind of overlooked amid the hype surrounding Clayton Kershaw's smoke is that the Mets have the pitchers that can hang with them. These are all guys who've been sort of flying under the radar when it comes to the consciousness of MLB outside of New York, but it's not as though the Mets were going to go in to Los Angeles and get their doors blown off. These were going to be really tight ballgames.

I had, in the 9 years intervening between the previous Mets playoff game and Friday night, forgotten just quite how much everything becomes magnified in the Playoffs. Just sitting and watching a game can't be done because it seems like everything could change on one pitch, and even in a Game 1 situation when you know that one loss isn't going to kill you—yet—I was still biting my nails and tapping my feet before the first pitch was even thrown. It didn't help that the game was scheduled for the rather asinine start time of 9:45pm in New York, making it a scene reminiscent of the 1999 NLDS, when the Mets had to play games 1 and 2 in Arizona at 11:00pm. Of course, I was in College then and didn't care so much about staying up until 2am, but now that I'm older, well, I get cranky. And antsy.

But then the game finally began and as expected, Clayton Kershaw pitched like he usually pitches, which is to say that the Mets weren't able to do much off him. But any idea that he would just cruise home to an easy victory was thrown out the window by his opponent for the good guys, Jacob deGrom. The easy choice for this Game 1 start, deGrom came out and let it fly, shooting 98mph fastballs all over the place and simply blowing Dodgers batters out of the box. Overamped? Sure. But probably not any more overamped than he might have been in the All Star Game, when he was throwing with similar flair. I'm still not sure where he hides that 98mph fastball, but he seems to have the ability to bring it out when he really needs it. But more than that, deGrom was the right guy to have out there because in this kind of a Game 1 situation, when you're trying to beat the other team's best guy in a hostile environment, you want a guy who can channel his emotions into his pitching, and deGrom seems to have the ability to do that more than most.

So, the expected pitching duel unfolds as expected, as between deGrom and Kershaw there were 12 strikeouts in the first 3 innings, with the requisite hits and walks sprinkled in sparsely. The Dodgers had a credible threat in the 2nd inning when Justin Turner hit a drive to left that clanked off of Michael Cuddyer's glove—€”and Cuddyer probably shouldn't have been in a game like this altogether, but that's another story for another time—and in the end deGrom was able to pitch around the trouble.

The Mets then broke through in the 4th when Daniel Murphy—because you figured it had to be Daniel Murphy—whacked a solo Home Run into the Mets bullpen. It had to be Daniel Murphy because of all the reasons it shouldn't have been Daniel Murphy, ranging from the lefty/lefty thing to the Daniel Murphy thing, but in the Postseason, things get wacky like that and Daniel Murphy hits a Home Run off of Clayton Kershaw. And it leads to Jacob deGrom ultimately outpitching Clayton Kershaw through those middle innings. The lead held through the 4th...5th...6th...and yeah, in the 1st game of the NLDS, I was counting outs, which means if this thing keeps on going I might pass out mid-game.

Finally, Kershaw tired in the 7th and walked 3 guys, Duda, Tejada and Granderson. The Mets had kind of been building up to that all night, because they made Kershaw work. For the number of times Mets hitters hacked at 1st pitches, there were ABs like Wright's 12-pitch walk in the 1st inning. They didn't help Kershaw and finally he was done and left a bases-loaded, 2 out spot for Pedro Baez in the 7th. I might have left Kershaw in to get out of this; even tired Kershaw is probably better than the alternative, but Mattingly felt differently and the result was that David Wright broke his Postseason Ice with a 2-run single that turned a 1-0 game into a 3-0 game and really took the pressure off of everyone. This was the sort of moment Wright had been waiting for for 9 years and dammit, he delivered when the team needed him to. That was crucial because it meant deGrom could go back out for the 7th, even over 100 pitches, and just let it fly. Where Kershaw looked spent in the 7th, deGrom was still free and easy and finished his night by blowing Joc Pederson and Chase Utley's carcass out of the box.

Still, there were 6 more outs to sweat through and Tyler Clippard made everyone sweat by allowing a double to Howie Kendrick and a run-scoring hit to Adrian Gonzalez, but as soon as there was trouble brewing, Collins had Jeurys Familia up and as soon as Gonzalez got that hit—and you knew that was coming—Familia was in the game. This is no time to screw around and Familia had been nailing down 4-out saves all season, specifically to be built up for moments like this. And yes, everyone had a heart attack when his first batter, Justin Turner, scalded a line drive to the right side, but Daniel Murphy, who seems to like this Postseason thing, picked it off to end the inning. In the 9th, Familia had a pretty easy time of it and the Mets won the 1st game of this NLDS, 3-1.

I already mentioned that the Mets had to accomplish one thing if they were going to win this series, and now they've done that, and done so impressively. In a game absolutely owned by the pitchers—the two teams combined for 27 strikeouts—the Mets came out on top. Kershaw allowed 4 hits and struck out 11, but deGrom topped him, scattering 5 hits over his 7 shutout innings and striking out 13. 13! In his Postseason Debut! And the Mets have won that road game that they needed to take, so now, they can come back tonight and just let it roll. The Dodgers, on the other hand, may well be shitting their collective pants. True, they'll have their other Ace, Zack Greinke on the mound tonight, but the Mets counter with Noah Syndergaard.

Following the game, after deGrom was interviewed on the field by TBS, whose only upside is that they have Ron Darling as their analyst, their marblemouthed play-by-play guy Ernie Johnson said something about "Jason deGrom." Seriously? My man just lit the Dodgers on fire, outdueled Clayton Kershaw and won his first Playoff game, and you can't even remember his name? I think the Mets just might have to keep this winning thing going just to make sure you're all paying attention.