Mets' mojo was nowhere to be found in NLCS Game 1 loss to Dodgers
Mets outfielder Brandon Nimmo and teammates look on from the dugout in the ninth inning during Game 1 of the NLCS against the Dodgers at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles on Sunday. Credit: Newsday/Thomas A. Ferrara
LOS ANGELES
When repeatedly asked to define their October mojo, the Mets had a difficult time explaining the phenomenon. There was no one thing. They just knew it when they saw it.
But on Sunday night, in Game 1 of the National League Championship Series, the Mets watched every drop of their intangible ally spill out on the pristine lawn of Chavez Ravine. Consider the mound, where Dodgers starter Jack Flaherty performed his mastery, as the giant bathtub drain.
Thanks to Kodai Senga’s disastrous start, Flaherty’s surprising dominance and a dash of self-sabotage, the Mets looked almost helpless, their playoff magic gone, in a sobering 9-0 loss to the Dodgers.
After a three-day break that seemed like eternity for a team excelling on fumes for weeks, the Mets now face their first series deficit (0-1) in three postseason rounds.
“The guys were ready,” said Francisco Lindor, last seen blasting the grand slam that booted the Phillies in Wednesday’s Division Series clincher. “I was ready. We were all ready. The bottom line it comes down to is we didn’t play the game better than they did. At this time of year, the team that plays the best that day is going to win.”
The hard part is coming to grips with the idea that the Mets weren’t the best team for a change. Before Sunday, Carlos Mendoza & Co. had won games in the most dramatic ways possible: flipping early deficits, mounting late rallies, hammering clutch homers.
But against the Dodgers? Crickets.
It certainly didn’t help that the Mets’ gamble on Senga — a bet that worked out for the NLDS opener in Philadelphia — was a catastrophic failure this time around.
Senga allowed three runs and recorded only four outs, one of those a sacrifice bunt that set up an RBI single by Shohei Ohtani in the second inning that bounced Senga from the game.
Senga’s command issues (four walks, no strikeouts, 30 pitches, 10 strikes) and David Peterson looking vulnerable in relief complicate the Mets’ decision on a Game 5 starter. They’ll still have to get there first, and these Dodgers, though seriously depleted, seem to be the West Coast reflection of the Mets in regard to being a tough October adversary.
“He was off,” Mendoza said of Senga. “He didn’t have it. He didn’t have the life on his fastball and a lot of balls [were] non-competitive pitches, especially the split. You could tell the way they were taking those pitches. Definitely off.”
Going in, there was a chance that could happen with Senga regardless of how much faith the Mets have in their enigmatic ace. We’re talking about a pitcher limited to a total of five regular-season innings because of shoulder and leg issues, followed by a few minor-league tuneups and some live batting-practice sessions.
Senga blamed Sunday’s malfunction on a mechanical glitch, one that surfaced during his pregame warm-up session.
“I tried to make some adjustments on the fly, but obviously I wasn’t able to,” he said through an interpreter. “I’m just disappointed in myself that I wasn’t able to make the adjustment.”
The Mets, thought to have the rotation edge, saw that evaporate as Senga fumbled his role and Flaherty didn’t allow a baserunner until a leadoff walk to Lindor in the fourth inning. That was one of their few flickers of hope, however, as they managed only two singles off Flaherty (seven innings) and failed to further tax the Dodgers’ already overworked relief corps.
That’s further trouble for Monday’s Game 2, as the Dodgers will have plenty of arms for an expected bullpen effort.
There were other troubling signs as well. Ohtani now seems awake after sleepwalking through the Division Series (10 strikeouts, three singles, one homer). He dented the Mets for two hits, including a 116-mph rocket off the right-centerfield wall that just missed being a home run.
One of the Mets’ only threats embarrassingly short-circuited in the fifth inning thanks to Jesse Winker’s bizarre baserunning gaffe. Winker led off with a single, but when Jose Iglesias followed with a bloop hit to centerfield, he started jitterbugging between second and third.
When Enrique Hernandez threw behind him, Winker should have sailed into third base. Instead, he inexplicably stopped well short of third and the replay cut him down easily.
“It’s on me,” Winker said. “Whenever you get on base, you go through a checklist of plays. Off the bat, I read first to third, then I just got caught in no-man’s land. Just didn’t want to get thrown out. Just a really bad, bad play by me.”
If it indeed is true that the Dodgers were the late-May catalysts for the Mets’ near-miraculous turnaround this season, they also did a very effective job of sapping that mojo Sunday night.
“I hate losing,” Lindor said. “Whether we lose by one, lose by 20, you got to learn from it and come back tomorrow.”
With a best-of-seven series, the Mets still have some tomorrows left. They just can’t afford too many more like Sunday.
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.