In today’s newsletter: Another brutal performance, the collapse of the pitching staff, and how elimination can be avoided.
Your New York Mets are 3-1 in the NLCS against the mighty Los Angeles Dodgers. For the second time this postseason, the Mets face the prospect of having their magical season come to an unceremonious end unless they can pull a rabbit out of their hat once more. You can’t win three games at once, though, so it all starts with Game 5 tonight at Citi Field. Win that and this series heads back to Los Angeles with a little more pressure put on the Dodgers. The motto: Just live to fight another day.
Take A Walk
At its core, baseball is a simple game. Throw strikes, or enough strikes to get the opposing team to also swing at balls, and get hits with runners on base. You can win baseball games without doing either of those things but, to win consistently, you need to be around the zone and you need to take advantage of scoring opportunities.
Thursday’s 10-2 Game 4 loss was a continuation of the struggles the Mets have had all series in those two areas. For the fourth-straight game, they walked more than seven Dodgers (nine in all) — setting a Major League record in the process — and were a hideous 0-for-10 with runners in scoring position. It’s almost impossible to win any games, let alone those in the playoffs against an elite opponent, with those ignominious numbers.
José Quintana was rudely greeted with a Shohei Ohtani lead-off homer that set the tone for the night. Mark Vientos responded with an opposite-field solo shot of his own in the bottom of the 1st off Yoshinobu Yamamoto but that was pretty much the only highlight of the night for the Orange and Blue.
The Dodgers grabbed control in the 3rd when they, you guessed it, capitalized on a walk. Quintana walked Ohtani — the first of three walks to the LA star, who scored four runs — and gave up a single to Mookie Betts before Tommy Edman blooped a RBI double between Harrison Bader and the hobbling Brandon Nimmo in left-center. Kiké Hernández made it 3-1 with an infield single to Francisco Lindor.
The Mets had a chance to draw even or possibly take their first lead since Game 2 when they loaded the bases in the bottom of the 3rd on singles from Francisco Álvarez and Lindor and a walk by Pete Alonso. Nimmo managed to leg out a fielder’s choice to drive in one run but Starling Marte grounded out to leave runners on the corners.
Wasted opportunities defined the night for the Mets, who didn’t score the rest of the way. An Álvarez hit-by-pitch to start the 5th went by the wayside as did a bases-loaded no-out situation in the 6th. By the 7th, when the Mets stranded runners on the corners again, Los Angeles already had a comfortable lead.
Quintana could never get going, in large part due to the disciplined Dodgers simply refusing to expand the zone for him. The wily veteran can’t throw stuff by opposing batters, instead using his varied pitch mix to keep them off-balanced and guessing. With that usually comes chasing, which the Phillies did often against him in the NLDS. Alas, the Dodgers are not the Phillies and they quickly wore Quintana out. Only 44 of his 83 pitches were strikes as he walked four batters (and gave up five hits) in 3 1/3 innings.
Somehow, the Mets were still in this game when Quintana departed with one out in the 4th and runners on first and second. In a critical spot, Carlos Mendoza turned to the scuffling José Buttó instead of a more high-leverage arm. It was a gamble and it failed because Buttó immediately gave up a two-run line drive double to Betts which took all the air out of Citi Field.
Buttó retired six of the next eight batters he faced. But, he too walked Ohtani in the 6th and, when Phil Maton relieved him, Betts struck again to deliver the final blow. He crushed a hanging sweeper over the left-field fence that turned this one from lopsided but somewhat-close into a full-on rout.
There was a small opening for the Mets in the 6th when Nimmo and Marte singled in front of a J.D. Martinez walk. However, Evan Phillips struck out José Iglesias, got Jeff McNeil to fly out and retired Jesse Winker on a hard-hit lineout that — off the bat — looked like it had a shot to leave the yard. The ball ran into a wall of wind that knocked it down and seemed to only interrupt Mets’ flyballs.
Danny Young admirably soaked up the final 2 1/3 frames, allowing two runs on another Edman double and a final tally on a Will Smith run-scoring single. The Mets couldn’t muster anything against three different LA relievers. Their wearing-out of opposing bullpens has gone away in this series.
What To Note
In this series, the Mets are 4-for-29 with runners in scoring position and the Dodgers are 16-for-48. Couple that with the 31 walks issued in four games and it’s frankly a bit of a miracle that this wasn’t a sweep.
Suffice to say, the Mets need one or two guys to step up and provide that critical knock. Right now, the offense feels like a clogged pipe that is ready to burst once the obstruction is removed. The Dodgers’ strong top-end starters and back-end relievers deserve credit, for sure, but this is a Mets team that has only survived the past few weeks because of its propensity to come through in those very situations. The ability is there. It might be buried under some debris and rubble from the gross showings in Flushing on Wednesday and Thursday but it’s there.
It really sucks for Quintana’s solid season — and incredible last two months — to possibly end the way it did. The Dodgers are a tough matchup for anyone but particularly for his style of pitching. Tip your cap.
Phil Maton had allowed only two runs in 21 2/3 postseason innings prior to this year. In the 2024 playoffs, he has given up 10 hits and five runs (three home runs) in 5 1/3 frames. Maton’s inability to avoid hard contact has shrunk the Mets’ already small bullpen circle of trust to essentially Stanek, Díaz and maybe Reed Garrett.
Throwing strikes in the Major Leagues is much easier said than done but I can’t help but wonder if Mets’ pitchers are literally scared of giving Ohtani anything to hit. Walking him in front of the rest of the Dodgers’ murderer’s row-esque lineup hasn’t worked and doing the same to Bryce Harper in the NLDS led to similarly rough results. You can’t get a lineup like the Dodgers’ out by refusing to challenge guys. Today, I would like to see Peterson (and whoever follows him) at least give themselves a chance to make LA hit into its own outs and not benefit from constant free passes.
Looking Ahead
Well, this could be it. Win and stay alive, lose and head into the long and cold offseason. This team has thrived with its back against the wall all postseason, is there any more magic left?
David Peterson gets the nod for the Mets at 5:08 p.m. on FS1 in what could be a full-length start. He last threw in Game 1 on Sunday, tossing 40 pitches in relief so he is on full rest. Kodai Senga is also available for a few innings as are Ryne Stanek and Edwin Díaz. Peterson struggled in his outing in LA but he has been so good in the playoffs that the Mets are relying on length from him.
Jack Flaherty — who dominated the Mets over seven scoreless innings on Sunday — is back on the mound for the Dodgers. It’s not easy to hold the same team in check twice in a week but Flaherty’s stuff was incredible in that 9-0 victory. Plus, the Mets’ bats have gone cold, particularly with runners in scoring position.
All it takes is that one big hit to potentially get this thing back on track. This team has earned our belief so, until there are 27 outs and the scoreboard is not in their favor, the Mets can’t be counted out just yet.
Winker is back in for Martinez at DH while McNeil is starting at second for Iglesias. Tyrone Taylor draws back in at center with Bader on the bench. All reasonable lineup changes that arguably should have been made yesterday.