Three takeaways from the Mets' NLCS Game 2 win over the Dodgers
LOS ANGELES — The Mets are coming home again.
After their two-week odyssey at the end of the regular season and into the postseason, this quick little two-nighter in Southern California felt like nothing. The result, though, is the same. The Mets are headed back to New York with their best-of-seven NLCS against the Dodgers tied 1-1, setting up another raucous couple of days at Citi Field.
“I expect it to be crazy,” Sean Manaea said.
Here are three takeaways from the Mets’ 7-3 win over the Dodgers.
1. Los Angeles was a definite success for the Mets.
Game 1 was ugly, no doubt. The Mets lost, 9-0, and looked as bad in a single game as they had in weeks.
Game 2 wasn’t the prettiest either, but it was a win, which is what mattered.
And so the first leg of the series was an overall success. All a road team reasonably wants to do is split the initial two games and steal home-field advantage; the Mets did just that.
The Mets, of course, weren’t too worried after dropping the opener. They’ve been playing with their season on the line for weeks, if not months. So this comeback was no biggie.
“We’ve been in situations like this before,” Manaea said. “It’s a seven-game series. It’s not a sprint. It’s definitely going to be a grind of a series. Those guys over there are trying to do the same, so just gotta come in each day and take it as it is. Just go out there and play baseball like we know how to.”
2. Manaea owned Shohei Ohtani.
This was fascinating to watch. Manaea held Ohtani to 0-for-3 with two strikeouts, a line in the boxscore that doesn’t do justice to just how silly he made the likely NL MVP look.
- First at-bat: Ohtani struck out swinging — waving, really — at a 92-mph sinker over the heart of the plate.
- Second at-bat: Manaea threw three more sinkers, all at 92-93 mph, the latter two over the plate for called strikes two and three.
- Third at-bat: Ohtani flailed again at a sweeping slider outside, popping out to first.
“I don't think you've seen Ohtani look that way too often. But that's what Sean does,” manager Carlos Mendoza said. “It's a tough at-bat. It's a different look. He's across his body, especially left-on-left, low arm slot, and it's hard to pick it up.
“And when you see one of the best hitters in the game take pitches like that and then the way he swung for strike three the [first] at-bat, I think it was, like, man, he's having a hard time seeing him.”
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said: “He didn't look comfortable versus Manaea. You can see he was just kind of trying to keep the ball away from Shohei. That's what they're going to do. Shohei is very good with the ball close to him. So they're just going to stay away, hard away. If it's spin, it's going to be away.”
Manaea downplayed the personal highlight, calling Ohtani “just one of the guys in the lineup.”
“Ohtani is an unbelievable player,” he said. “I’m just happy to get him out quickly and have him off the basepaths.”
This matchup will be worth keeping an eye on in Manaea’s next start, which would be in the if-necessary Game 6 on Sunday at Dodger Stadium.
3. Brandon Nimmo is hurting — and looks it.
We learned this week that he has been dealing with plantar fasciitis in his left foot periodically since May, but especially so over the past week. This is a problem the Mets expect to stay with Nimmo for however long the Mets’ season goes.
Mendoza said Nimmo likely would be on the injured list if it weren’t the postseason, a sentiment backed up by the look of Nimmo on the field. On Monday, he was usually the last player to take his position for each defensive half-inning. He limped all the way across to leftfield and took a couple of awkward-looking swings (as well as a couple of very good ones that yielded line drives for outs).
When Mendoza plugged in late-game defensive replacements, he put Harrison Bader in centerfield, as usual. But instead of shifting Tyrone Taylor to right for Starling Marte, Mendoza subbed out Nimmo.
“Good enough to play,” Mendoza said of Nimmo. “It got to a point where you see him limping when he’s taking the field and things like that. It was nothing serious until that last series, when he started feeling it really bad."
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.
