Mets beat Dodgers in Game 5, send NLCS back to Los Angeles

The Mets aren’t ready for all of this to end, so they’ll go back to California instead.

Pete Alonso’s three-run home run in the first inning on Friday kick-started a 12-6 win over the Dodgers in Game 5, extending the National League Championship Series and thus the Mets’ season.

They did this time what they failed to do during most of the previous week: score plenty and pitch well enough.

Relievers Ryne Stanek (2 1⁄3 innings, one run) and Edwin Diaz (two innings, no runs) handled basically the entire second half of the game, an extreme form of bullpen usage — which may take a toll over the coming days — brought on by the Mets’ desperation.

And so they hung on and earned another transcontinental flight, sneaking deeper into October. The scene in the postgame clubhouse told the story: three dozen duffel bags, one in front of each locker, ready to be packed and put on a plane due to land in Los Angeles in the wee hours Saturday.

The Dodgers still own a 3-2 lead in the best-of-seven series. After an off day, the teams will play Game 6 on Sunday at Dodger Stadium. If the Mets win that, too, Game 7 is set for Monday.

“We haven’t done anything the easy way yet this year,” Stanek said. “It’s an opportunity to do something special. Why stop now?”

This win, certainly, did not come the easy way. Even with a large lead, Carlos Mendoza managed as if it were tight. The season was on the line, after all, so when the Mets were up by eight in the fifth inning, Stanek began to warm up.

Mendoza was putting into action a plan he had formed the previous night. After the Mets were blown out by the Dodgers, putting them one loss from elimination, Stanek and Diaz took the long, cold walk together from the bullpen to the dugout at an already empty Citi Field. Bundled up, unused in the ugly outcome, they shared a knowing look.

“We kind of joked, well, you got two and I got two tomorrow,” Stanek said. “It was kind of just acknowledged. That’s going to be what’s expected. We were very much anticipating at least two [innings]. We kind of knew it was time to go.”

Eighteen hours later, when Reed Garrett allowed a three-run home run by Andy Pages — the rookie outfielder’s second homer of the night — to trim the Mets’ lead to a mere five, Mendoza decided that yes indeed, it was time to go.

Stanek came in to finish the fifth, striking out Shohei Ohtani. He bounced off the mound with a fist pump.

Then he got the Mets through the sixth, too, and wasn’t sure what the seventh would bring. Maybe he’d start and “somebody picks me up,” he wondered, by finishing? Stanek wound up setting down three more Dodgers in a row.

“You’re doing the math. You’re running it down from nine innings,” Phil Maton, who did not pitch, said of the conversation among relievers. “You’re trying to figure out how we’re going to do it, and you know somebody is going to have to come up big and cover some innings that they’re usually not going to do.

“Ryne going out there and giving us those outs, that’s huge. Big arm. Him doing that third up [third partial inning], it’s very taxing.”

The injured Drew Smith, hanging out with his fellow relievers, said: “I don’t know if any reliever is ever like, ‘Give me six, give me seven [outs].’ But in the playoffs, yeah, all for it, whatever the team needs. He did a great job . . . He’s usually a one-inning guy. One-plus is good. Two-plus is crazy. He earned that day off tomorrow for sure.”

Stanek, a trade-deadline acquisition from the Mariners who emerged in recent weeks as the Mets’ top setup man, chuckled at several questions about how he felt physically. Seven outs marked the longest outing of his career.

“My philosophy and my approach,” he said, “is let it all hang and go as hard as I can for as long as I can.”

The Mets led by five when Diaz entered in the eighth and by six when he returned for the ninth. He allowed one baserunner in a legitimately routine, normal, dominant outing, especially by his recent standards. In the final frame, he said, he just wanted the Dodgers to put the ball in play so he could keep his pitch count down. He totaled 23 pitches, which sets him up well for Sunday.

“I was treating this game like a 1-0 game, tie game,” Diaz said. “I was trying to do my best to secure the W.”

Consider the rest of the Mets impressed.

“These guys are nails, man,” Jesse Winker said. “They’re savages.”

Brandon Nimmo said: “We’re just laying everything on the line right now. Obviously, we’re asking a lot of everyone.”

The offensive highlights were many. They rocked Dodgers righty Jack Flaherty for eight runs in three innings, making David Peterson’s outing (3 2⁄3 innings, two runs) look like gold.

Starling Marte went 4-for-5 with three RBIs. Francisco Alvarez had three hits; Alonso, Francisco Lindor and Winker added two apiece. Jeff McNeil, making his first NLCS start, contributed two sacrifice flies.

The Mets will need more of that “magic of the postseason,” as Alonso referenced, in Los Angeles.

“Honestly, it’s just such a special ride,” Alonso said. “How we’ve responded and answered the bell every single step of the way this year, it’s been tremendous. And I have no doubt for everybody in the room.”

By Tim Healey

timothy.healey@newsday.com@timbhealey

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.