PHILADELPHIA — The New York Mets exist for the moments that make those of lesser stock and constitution crumble. The late innings are their playground, the comeback their wheelhouse, and no matter how many times they pull off this magic trick, the prestige won’t be any less impressive.
The latest came early Saturday evening, in Game 1 of the National League Division Series against the Philadelphia Phillies. Feckless and shut out for seven innings, the Mets turned the eighth into death by a half-dozen cuts for the Phillies, dropping five runs and silencing Citizens Bank Park in an eventual 6-2 victory that stole home-field advantage in the five-game series and continued New York’s charmed week.
It’s an enchanted season, really, but over the most recent six-day stretch, the Mets used eighth- and ninth-inning comebacks to clinch a playoff spot, won the deciding game in their wild-card series with a ninth-inning rebirth and blitzed a pair of All-Star Phillies relievers to secure the latest win.
“This is something that we’ve done throughout the year,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said. “When we’re clicking as a team offensively, there’s so many things that we do. We put the ball in play, we use the whole field and we’re not thinking too big. And we did it today again.”
All of it started after Phillies ace Zack Wheeler left following a brilliant seven-inning outing. Over 111 pitches, Wheeler generated a career-high 30 swing-and-misses and limited the Mets to one hit and no runs. When Wheeler was pulled before the eighth, manager Rob Thomson took comfort in having a well-rested bullpen, with the second-seeded Phillies having last played before the calendar turned to October.
He turned to right-hander Jeff Hoffman, who got ahead of Francisco Alvarez 0-1 before he roped a single. Hoffman was ahead of Francisco Lindor 0-2 before throwing four straight balls. He was ahead of Mark Vientos 0-2 and left up a slider that Vientos yanked to left to score the Mets’ first run and tie the game at 1. In came left-hander Matt Strahm, who was ahead of Brandon Nimmo 0-2 and couldn’t sneak a fastball by him. Another single put the Mets ahead 2-1.
Pete Alonso, the hero from the wild-card series comeback against the Brewers, fought back from an 0-2 count to drive in a run with a sacrifice fly. Jose Iglesias turned an 0-2 count — and seven consecutive foul balls that followed it — into a single. And J.D. Martinez followed with another single and Starling Marte another sacrifice fly to make it 5-1.
“I feel like we’ve been playing playoff baseball for three or four weeks now,” Nimmo said. “Our season has depended on it. We’ve been doing that for a while now, and just trying to focus on whatever gets the job done and whatever gets us a W at the end of the day. When you’re only down one run, you’re able to think small and try to push that one run across, and then just keep doing it. I thought what we did, you could put on a highlight reel. This is just good baseball without hitting a home run.”
The Mets, Martinez said, are “stubborn” in their approach. And it’s the sort of thing, he said, that can lead to innings like the six-run flurry against Atlanta in Game 161 or the four-run ambush of Game 3 against the Brewers.
“Don’t think with the pitcher, don’t guess,” Martinez said. “Just lock in with the approach and stick to it. Live and die by it. You went up there with a plan for a reason. It’s easy to go, boom, boom, and all of a sudden, it’s like, ‘Oh, my god. Abandoned plan.'”
Lindor, the Mets’ leader, noticed himself falling into that trap during his plate appearance in the eighth. He had hit the go-ahead, ninth-inning home run in Game 161 when down a run, and the Mets were there again. He swung at an 0-2 slider in the dirt and just got a piece of it to stay alive.
“For one second, I had a feeling of, ‘Let me get this done,'” Lindor said. “And then I kept on hearing the guys and I found myself thinking, ‘Hey, just pass the baton. Don’t try to do nothing crazy.’ Everybody had that mentality throughout the whole inning. Nobody was trying to be bigger in the moment. Everybody was just trying to embrace what was happening.”
What’s happening is a team that was once 24-35 is now two wins from its first NL Championship Series since 2015. And it happened in a game that started as poorly as it could. After Wheeler carved through the Mets in the first inning on 11 pitches, New York starter Kodai Senga, pitching in the major leagues for the first time since July 29, allowed a home run to Kyle Schwarber on his third pitch.
Senga settled down and looked good over two innings, and the Mets’ bullpen — bulk man David Peterson and right-handers Reed Garrett and Phil Maton — matched Wheeler zero for zero. Only when Wheeler left did the Phillies’ night crumble, prompting questions about whether the layoff hindered their relief pitchers.
“I don’t think so,” Thomson said. “They pitched on Wednesday, and they threw the ball fairly well. I’d have to look at the tape. It’s probably about execution and leaving some pitches in the middle of the zone. The walk to Lindor didn’t help, that’s for sure.”
It was simply one moment in an inning of pain for a Phillies team that in its last meeting with the Mets dropped two of three games and squandered an otherworldly start from Wheeler. In Game 2 on Sunday, the Mets will return to a normal pitching plan, starting Luis Severino, while the Phillies will counter with Cristopher Sanchez, whose numbers at the Bank this season have been the best of any starter on the team.
“It’s not going to work out all the time,” Nimmo said. “And that’s a reality. And you have to be OK with that in baseball, but you hope over the long term it’s going to work out. And so right now when you have games like Atlanta, you have games like Milwaukee, it makes you believe in yourself even more.”
