LOS ANGELES — In this improbably wonderful Mets run through late September and early October that can’t ever be matched, they already beat the hated the Braves, shocked the troublesome Brewers and dispatched the extremely disliked Phillies.
The Mets turned an impossible gauntlet with a worse travel schedule into an utter joyride with necessarily superb play.
And things just got tougher. At least it would seem that way.
The celebrity-and-star-filled Dodgers — the Mets’ National League Championship Series opponent after L.A.’s 2-0 victory here Friday night over the detested Padres — are the most celebrated roster maybe ever. Superstars comprise the first third of their excellent lineup. It starts with international sensation Shohei Ohtani, the 50-50 man who will beat the amazing Mets all-everything Francisco Lindor for MVP, and at full strength their depth of talent is almost limitless.
If the Dodgers aren’t America’s team, they belong to the world.
They are not only the other National League team with a payroll past $300 million, unlike the slightly-pricier Mets ($341 million), who moved on from the brief Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander era just in time, the Dodgers actually still own all their high-priced celebs and Hall of Famers to be, even if they aren’t all healthy and active at the moment.
Money matters. The three teams to reach baseball’s final four are the three $300 million teams, which is a pretty good indicator that money matters. The fourth will be the Guardians or Tigers, with both payrolls being less than nothing (at least by NYC standards).
L.A. is a franchise to be reckoned with, as well run as any, with accomplished pros all over the diamond and in the dugout, too, and they rode two long solo shots off ex-Dodger Yu Darvish, by Kiké Hernandez and Teoscar Hernandez, to win the first ever postseason matchup of Japanese born pitchers (the $325 million man Yoshinobu Yamamoto got the call for L.A. and the win).
“We fought,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “We did not relent one time.”
These Dodgers surely are fighters, to make it this far with 10 pitchers on the 40-man roster out (not to mention spiritual leader Freddie Freeman badly hobbled). But here’s why the Mets not only have a real shot but I say will win.
The Mets are actually the better-rested team for once. Their five-stop, 16-day trip (including a hurricane) is only a happy memory now. By eliminating the Phillies in four tidy games, the Mets won two extra days rest.
That’s great for them, and especially problematic for the Dodgers, whose rotation is so thin they had to go completely with their bullpen by game four, which also happened to be an elimination game. Their pen is excellent but that isn’t optimal.
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The Dodgers are still winning, and they finished the Padres off with a miraculous 24 straight scoreless innings. But they aren’t really themselves, or at least not their healthy selves.
They have almost a record number of MLB pitchers currently on the injured list. Give them credit for getting past the Padres, who held an arguable rotation edge in games one through five.
“[It’s] the character of this locker room — the individuals, the people, the humans, not just the baseball player,” Kiké Hernandez said. “We have a bunch of people that want to win at all costs, no matter how it comes, no matter how it looks.”
The Dodgers are hurting, but they’re hot, having gone a second-best-in-baseball 42-23 since the break (only the Padres, 43-20, were better).
But the Dodgers seem only lukewarm lately compared to these Mets with their magic and mojo and momentum. Don’t knock it, they believe in that stuff out here.
Of even greater concern, that potentially devastating Dodgers rotation is, in a word, a mess.
Yamamoto looked great in the deciding Game 5, but the Mets can’t really be regretting saving their $325 million bucks there — at least not yet. Yamamoto didn’t have a regular season to match his money, and he got hit in Game 1. But Roberts kept the faith.
“I knew he wasn’t going to run from this spot,” Roberts said.
Rotation options are limited now. There’s a feisty Jack Flaherty who regained previous form, and would have been a Yankee if his medicals didn’t reveal an iffy lower back, plus a diminished Walker Buehler.
That’s your Dodgers rotation.
Meantime, everything looks right for the Mets now. Half the regular year was tough, but everything’s completely turned around. Their rotation is in intact and impossibly effective lately.
This is a hot and confident Mets team. They don’t cop to magic or mojo, but no one can say they don’t have momentum now.
It has been one wild and happy ride for the Mets, and the Dodgers, no matter how beat up, are far from a pushover. They have that star-laden lineup mainly intact and a stacked bullpen, which is even better now than the Brewers or Phillies pens, which were decimated by these amazing Mets, who keep overcoming insurmountable odds. Don’t bet against these Mets now.
