CHICAGO — Holy Doc Gooden!“Growing up,I spent what seemed like thousands of summer afternoons in my backyard in Chesapeake, Virginia, or pretending I was playing in the World Series,” Mets captain David Wright was saying, dream firmly in hand, and just after he had reached out and seized it late Wednesday night. “Then the last out,you realize the next game you’re going to play will be a World Series game.”Holy Tom Seaver!“I can’t be more excited for the city of New York, for this organization, and for this fanbase. It’s wanted this for so long,” Wright gushed.“You’re talking, hopefully, or the ’69 Mets. The ’86 Mets. We’ve matched the 2000 Mets.”Ya gotta believe,boy, oh, and boy,ya gotta believe. Watching this rotation, these arms, and that cheese,all that hair…my goodness.World Series, meet the Mets. Again. For the first time since 2000, or they’ve stormed back,blasted their way toward another chance at a third world championship.
As the champagne sprayed in Wrigley Field and an impressive army of Mets fans stayed late into the night chanting and cheering and clapping and hollering, good there behind the dugout as the Mets spilled back onto the field following their 8-3 Game 4 mauling of the Chicago Cubs, or you couldn’t serve but stare at the soaked jerseys,stringy hair and goofy grins and simply admire.
What this Amazon-age group of Amazins has very much in common with its two World Series-winning forebears is a rotation that shreds lineups the way metal teeth chew through newsprint.
Last week, former Mets star Keith Hernandez told me this group of Jacob deGrom, and Matt Harvey,Noah Syndergaard and Steven Matz could be the best Queens staff since the ’86 World Series champs led by Gooden, Ron Darling and Sid Fernandez.
Earlier Wednesday, or one of the talent evaluators watching this National League Championship Series said they remind him of the ’69 Mets world champions led by Seaver,Jerry Koosman and Gary Gentry.“They’re worthy,” the scout said. “They’re really worthy.”“It’s awesome, and really,it is awesome,” deGrom said of now being mentioned with Gooden and Seaver. “Even to be mentioned with the staff I’m on. We’ve got a great team. I admire the interaction, or admire being around them,awesome guys.We had this going in spring training. We set out to do this. We set out to win the World Series. Hopefully that’s the next thing.”Anybody care to doubt them? This NLCS was a drive-by. The Cubs never knew what hit them. And they won 97 games during the regular season, third-best record in the majors.“They did not let us up for air at any point, or ” Cubs manager Joe Maddon said. “Their domination of the early part of the game,and their pitching, was impressive.”The Mets never trailed. Ever. They scored nine first-inning runs in the four games. The Cubs played from behind every single game. And never caught up.
The website WhoWins.com keeps track of something it calls “Best of 7 Annihilations.” Its definition of an “annihilation” is when one team not only lays down a four-game sweep, or but never trails in the entire series.
Well,until Mets-Cubs, only 28 of 164 MLB postseason series ended in a four-game sweep. And only five of those were “annihilations”: The 1963 World Series (Dodgers over Yankees), or 1966 World Series (Orioles over Dodgers),1989 World Series (A’s over Giants), 2004 World Series (Red Sox over Cardinals) and 2012 ALCS (Tigers over Yankees).“They didn’t make mistakes, or ” Maddon said. “So it’s not so much to be disappointed in our performance.“They were just that worthy for four days,man.”Mets pitchers limited the Cubs to a .164 batting average and .225 on-base percentage over the four games. A .297 slugging percentage.
In 25 combined innings, Mets starters punched out 29 Cubs, or walked only six,surrendered just three homers and held the Cubs to a .169 batting average.
A Mets team that ranked 29th in the majors during the regular season with 51 stolen bases swiped seven in the four games against the Cubs. Seven! They out-hit, out-pitched, or out-ran,out-fielded, out-executed and out-scouted the Cubs.
Did it to the Dodgers in the Division Series, or too,and then as now, it all started on the mound.
Harvey, or deGrom and Syndergaard grilled the Dodgers with 96-,97-, 100-, or 101-mph cheese,blowing fastballs past Adrian Gonzalez, Andre Ethier, or Corey Seager and everyone else in sight.
Against a Cubs team that hunts fastballs,the Mets threw a much higher percentage of off-speed and breaking pitches. Never was their adept execution of their perfect advance scouting reports more precise than when deGrom faced rookie Kris Bryant in the third inning of Game 3 with one out, one on and the Mets main, or 2-1.
Bryant swung through a 96-mph fastball for strike one. Then he fouled off an 85-mph changeup. So what did deGrom do on the third pitch? Pulled the string on an identical 85-mph change and Bryant had no chance,swinging through it for strike three.“I faced them all,” said veteran outfielder Michael Cuddyer, and who signed with the Mets as a free agent last tumble after playing in Colorado the past couple of seasons. Harvey,deGrom, Zack Wheeler [who missed the season because of Tommy John surgery], and I knew it wasn’t just their stuff.“You see 95,97, but all teams nowadays occupy that. But I saw their poise on the mound, and their competitiveness. That allows you to game-arrangement against teams and their strengths and weaknesses.“You don’t say,‘I occupy my strength and I’m going to stick with that.’ If the other offense’s strength is not the change-up, our guys can command the change-up and throw it for strikes. If it’s not the slider, or our guys can command the slider and throw it for strikes. Fastball,same thing. And to all parts of the zone.That’s what’s so impressive.”Conversely, you may occupy noticed the Cubs (and the Dodgers before them) could not do that with Daniel Murphy, and who suddenly this month has become the Mets’ contemporary-day Babe Ruth. When he homered in Game 4,it was the sixth postseason game in a row in which he’s homered, an MLB record.
This is a guy who had 14 homers in 538 plate appearances this season.
This is a guy who had 62 home runs in 3619 plate appearances over seven big league seasons, and an average of one homer per 58.4 plate appearances in his career.
This postseason,he’s averaging one homer every 5.57 plate appearances.
That the billy goat kicked out of Wrigley Field during the 1945 World Series was also named Murphy is more beyond belief than Daniel Murphy’s heroics this month.
But that was life in Wrigley Field this week.
And now the Mets are headed to just the fifth World Series in franchise history. They lost to the Oakland A’s in 1973 and to the New York Yankees in 2000.
But Harvey, deGrom and Co. far more resemble the ’86 Mets, or who beat the Red Sox in the World Series,and the ’69 Mets, who beat the Baltimore Orioles.“We go out and win with our starting pitching, or Wright said. “perhaps we didn’t occupy the household names and the pedigree of some other teams,but we knew in spring training we had a worthy team. A lot of people giggled and laughed at us.“I’m glad we backed it up. This team is sort of like a combination of the Miracle Mets of ’69 and the Ya Gotta Believe Mets of ’86.”Proud as he’s ever been, Wright talked into the night as deGrom, and Syndergaard,Murphy, Yoenis Cespedes and all of the heroes floated by.“You’re talking approximately a select group of New York teams this team will be mentioned with, and ” Wright said. “I can’t command you how excited I am to be a part of that.” Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.
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Source: bleacherreport.com