LOS ANGELES — Surely you didn’t expect the New York Mets to go down quite as easily as they did in Game 1.
A day after the Dodgers blew out the Mets by nine runs, Grimace’s favorite team evened the National League Championship Series by showing what helped them flip the switch from an awful start to an electric finish this season.
“We get punched in the face, and we continue to find ways to get back up,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said after their 7-3 victory in Game 2 on Monday afternoon. “And it will continue to be that way.”
In case you missed the rollercoaster of their season, the Mets were off to a terrible start, failing 11 games under .500. They turned their season around with a seven-game winning streak – starting when McDonalds’ iconic purple monster threw out a first pitch in June. That began a stretch in which the Mets went 60-36, the best record in the majors over that span.
Since then, they dispatched two of the National League’s division winners – the Milwaukee Brewers and Philadelphia Phillies – in the playoffs, and now they have their sights set on the third.
It wasn’t looking so good when the Dodgers thumped the Mets, 9-0, in the opener, running their scoreless innings streak to 33.
That streak didn’t even last one batter into Game 2.
Francisco Lindor – the likely runner-up to Shohei Ohtani for NL MVP – led off the game with a homer.
Lindor had blasted a go-ahead homer in the game that put the Mets into the playoffs, and he also drilled a grand slam to give the Mets the lead in the division series clincher against the Phillies.
Lindor has been so good in the clutch for the Mets that no one batted an eye when the Dodgers intentionally walked him to load the bases in the second inning.
Third baseman Mark Vientos, who was on deck, certainly knows intellectually that it’s the right baseball move to pitch to him instead of Lindor.
Still …
“For sure, I took it personal,” Vientos said. “I want to be up there during that at-bat for sure. I want them to walk Lindor in that situation, put me up there. And at that point I was just, let me simplify the game, just get one run in, get a walk – whatever I can do to add another run to the score. And luckily I hit a bomb there and it went over the fence.”
Vientos hit a grand slam that extended the Mets’ lead to 6-0.
Although they didn’t finish off the blowout with the same efficiency as the Dodgers had the night before – the Mets’ defense was shaky and they walked eight – they nonetheless got the victory.
Now, the teams will head across the country and play three straight games at Citi Field, where the Mets’ fans just cheered their team on to back-to-back victories to vanquish the Phillies.
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“I expect it to be crazy,” said Mets left-hander Sean Manaea, who picked up the victory on Monday. “Last time we were there playing the Phillies, it was wild. I expect nothing less. Just very excited to be back there.”
Getting a split in the first two games of a best-of-seven series is always the road team’s goal, because it changes the series into a best-of-five with the next three at home.
“We’ve got a chance to take the series at home,” Mets closer Edwin Diaz said. “So I feel really good. We are really happy. We played a really good game today. Just continue what we’re doing and we will be fine.”
The Mets, of course, are aware that the momentum they gained by winning Game 2 will vanish if they don’t win Game 3. They know that the Dodgers are just as capable of bouncing back from a tough loss as they were.
“It’s a seven-game series; it’s not a sprint,” Manaea said. “It’s definitely going to be a grind of a series. Those guys over there are going to do the same. Just come in and each day and take it as it is, and go out there and play baseball like we know how to.”
New York Mets relief pitcher Edwin Díaz celebrates after striking out the Dodgers’ Freddie Freeman in the ninth inning for the final out of their 7-3 victory in Game 2 of the National League Championship Series on Monday afternoon at Dodger Stadium. (Photo by Keith Birmingham, Orange County Register/SCNG)