Mets' magic has worn off as they again lose big to Dodgers
Los Angeles Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani celebrates with Mookie Betts after they both score on the homer by Betts as Mets catcher Francisco Alvarez looks on during the sixth inning in Game 4 of the NLCS at Citi Field on Thursday, Oct. 17, 2024. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
The Mets at least found the scoreboard early in Thursday night’s NLCS Game 4 when Mark Vientos traded first-inning homers with Shohei Ohtani.
Ohtani led off with a 118-mph missile that reached the back of the Mets’ rightfield bullpen. Estimated distance: 422 feet.
Next was Vientos, who dumped his 397-foot shot into the Dodgers’ neighboring pen, a loud response that fired up the sellout crowd of 43,882 at a chilly Citi Field.
That was what we’d come to expect from the Mets this October. Manager Carlos Mendoza constantly talked about his team’s ability to take a punch and come right back swinging. They did it successfully against Atlanta to clinch a playoff berth, rallied to stun the Brewers in the Wild Card Series, then swiped the Division Series with an upset of the Phillies.
In the NLCS, however, it’s become increasingly difficult for these staggering Mets to climb up off the mat. After Vientos’ stirring homer, they did virtually nothing against Yoshinobu Yamamato — the Japanese ace who spurned Steve Cohen’s $325 million offer last winter — and the Dodgers’ lockdown relief corps in a 10-2 loss that has them facing elimination in Friday’s Game 5.
David Peterson will get the start — not Kodai Senga, whose name was floated the previous 24 hours — as the Mets are down to a single loss standing between them and a winter of what-might-have-beens.
It’s happened to them only one other time in these playoffs, when Pete Alonso’s three-run homer in the ninth inning beat the Brewers in Game 3 of the Wild Card Series.
“Just having our backs against the wall pretty consistently throughout the year, it’s taught us a lot about our character and who we are in our identity as a team,” Alonso said. “We’re a super-resilient bunch and we’ve had to answer the bell all year. It’s no different now.
“Losing like we have at home, is that fun? No. We just need to be better.”
Way better. In a hurry.
With Thursday’s blowout, the Mets have been outscored 30-9 in this NLCS, including a pair of shutouts. As feared, the disciplined Dodgers didn’t chase Jose Quintana’s efforts to get them out of the strike zone, and they stung him for five runs in 3 1⁄3 innings. But the recurring theme of this NLCS — and ultimately the Mets’ undoing — was their inability to solve L.A.’s pitching staff when it mattered most.
The Mets went 0-for-10 with runners in scoring position Thursday, dropping them to .138 (4-for-29) for the series. Citing Yamamoto’s reverse splits, Mendoza mostly stuck with his righty bats for Game 4, but that strategy didn’t change much as J.D. Martinez — used at DH instead of Jesse Winker — and a rare start for Harrison Bader had almost zero impact.
With all the public debate over Francisco Alvarez’s struggles and the suggestion of benching him, the young catcher actually reached base twice (single, HBP) in the Mets’ otherwise futile team-wide effort.
Kudos to Brandon Nimmo for his non-stop hustle despite being hobbled by plantar fasciitis in his left foot, and he actually beat out a double-play grounder that cut the Mets’ deficit to 3-2 in the third inning. But Nimmo’s physical struggles have become almost emblematic of the Mets’ nightly shortcomings — just too little, too late — in the face of a Dodgers team that relentlessly keeps coming up with what it needs when it needs it.
“We’re going to do our best to add to this story and make some more magic,” Nimmo said. “But it’s definitely not easy, and nothing that we’ve really done up to this point has been, so I guess that’s the fitting part of the story. We’re definitely not going to give up. We’re going to go out there and fight until the very end. Anything’s possible until it’s over.”
During the Mets’ improbable, incredible ride of the past month, they made those words a reality. But the Dodgers are doing a very effective job in the dream-killer role, and unless Peterson can find a way to slow them Friday from the jump — starting with Ohtani, who homered off him in Game 1 — the Mets’ October romp could be over very soon.
Whatever the Mets have left in them, consider Friday the last call for heroes. We’ve witnessed it numerous times during this postseason, so there’s reason to expect an encore. Mendoza & Co. have made it part of their October playbook.
“You gotta believe,” Lindor said. “We’ve got to fight for what we want. It comes down to one day at a time and executing. We have an amazing opportunity . . . So we got to come out, we got to execute and we got to play the game better than them.”
The Mets have managed to do that in only one game out of four this series. Now, behind Peterson, on the brink of elimination, they’ll need to prove this dream isn’t ready to die just yet.
“I believe in this group,” Alonso said. “The one word I can think of about the 2024 Mets — other than Grimace — is resiliency. That’s just who we are.”
We’ll see about that in Friday’s Game 5. Even Grimace can’t help them now.
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.