Mets fall to Dodgers in NLCS Game 6, are eliminated from MLB playoffs
Mets outfielder Jesse Winker sits in the dugout in the eighth inning during Game 6 of the NLCS against the Dodgers at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles on Sunday. Credit: Newsday/Thomas A. Ferrara
LOS ANGELES — The fate the Mets long had feared — and fought — arrived Sunday night.
Heartbreak crept in over the course of days, as the Dodgers established their superiority in the National League Championship Series, then hammered them about when it hurt most, with their most reliable pitcher tiring and faltering just as the hitters disappeared.
The Mets lost to the Dodgers, 10-5, in Game 6 at Dodger Stadium, ending the best-of-seven duel as well as their improbable, joyful, bewildering season in a manner as abrupt as so many of their comebacks.
This time, there was no revival, not enough of that signature sticktoitiveness. The Mets, upon falling behind 3-1 in the NLCS, needed to beat the Dodgers in three consecutive games to advance to the World Series. They got only one.
In the final moments, all of the Mets were at the top step of the dugout, arms on the railing, just in case they pulled out one last miracle. But none came. It all ended with Francisco Alvarez grounding out to second base against Blake Treinen.
The Mets have not won the World Series in 38 years. Their only titles in 63 seasons of existence came in 1969 and 1986.
The Dodgers will play the American League-winning Yankees in the Fall Classic. Game 1 is Friday in Los Angeles.
A postseason run that originated from and continued with the proverbial one big hit — Francisco Lindor in Atlanta, Pete Alonso in Milwaukee, Lindor again at Citi Field against the Phillies — ended with the Mets needing but lacking exactly that.
As was the case so often all summer and into autumn, the Mets had every chance to win. They matched the Dodgers with 11 hits. But they stranded 12 runners on base, including seven in the first three innings, when the game was close and another run or several could have shifted the tenor of the entire game. They went 2-for-9 with runners in scoring position, including 1-for-7 in those opening three frames.
Perhaps the most painful missed opportunity presented itself in the sixth, when Los Angeles righthander Evan Phillips went wild, walking Mark Vientos and Pete Alonso to load the bases with two outs. Jesse Winker stepped to the plate as the potential go-ahead run. The crowd of a not-quite-jam-packed 52,674 fell into a nervous buzz.
Winker flew out softly to leftfield. Teoscar Hernandez made a running catch to end the Mets’ last best threat.
That non-rally was representative of the Mets’ thin margin of error — in their last game, yes, but also for months.
In so many instances since their June turnaround, balls like Winker’s — or like Lindor’s to almost the same spot earlier in the inning — fell in. The Mets got a good bounce, a big break, sometimes from the opposing team and sometimes, it felt, from the baseball gods themselves. And they would always capitalize, turning that extra opportunity into a big inning and usually a win.
The Mets scored in the first inning, when they scratched across a run against Michael Kopech via a walk, wild pitch, groundout and Pete Alonso’s weird single fisted over the mound.
Mark Vientos added a two-run homer in the third, getting the Mets to within three. His 14 RBIs set a franchise record for a single postseason. And his five long balls were second most (behind 2015 Daniel Murphy’s seven).
In his career-high 36th start of the season, a day after openly discussing how physically exhausted he has been after all those innings and pitches, Sean Manaea appeared to hit “the wall” he described last week — except almost immediately this time, as opposed to the middle of the game like last time.
He failed to record an out in the third inning, giving up five runs, six hits and two walks. He struck out two.
His troubles began during a 34-pitch first inning. That began with Shohei Ohtani — the likely NL MVP, whom Manaea made look silly at the plate in Game 2 — who managed to ground a sinker hard up the middle for a single.
After Teoscar Hernandez put runners on the corners with one out — via a line drive off the centerfield wall that he turned into single by not hustling — Tommy Edman came through. He hooked a double to leftfield, easily scoring Ohtani and the running-hard-this-time Hernandez. The Mets’ one-run lead became a one-run deficit. It never got better.
Manaea navigated a scoreless second before finding more trouble in the third. Hernandez singled and Edman rocked a home run to left-centerfield. When Max Muncy walked, manager Carlos Mendoza had seen enough. Manaea’s night was over.
What followed was an all-out, last-ditch attempt to save the season, as much as Mendoza could control such a bid from the dugout. He used his top four relievers by the end of the sixth inning.
Phil Maton finished the third, but only after yielding a two-run homer to Will Smith, pushing Los Angeles’ lead to five. Closer Edwin Diaz entered in the fourth and tossed two scoreless, easy-looking innings. Ryne Stanek (three batters, no outs) and Reed Garrett (three batters, three outs) shared the sixth.
Koda Senga entered in the seventh, his first appearance since a short, ineffective start in Game 1. He allowed three runs in 1 2/3 innings, with the Dodgers blowing it open in the bottom of the eighth.
Tim Healey is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. Born on Long Island and raised in Connecticut, Tim has previously worked for the South Florida Sun Sentinel, the Boston Globe and MLB.com. He is also the author of “Hometown Hardball,” a book about minor league baseball in the northeast.
