LOS ANGELES — Never has a schedule provided a sharper contrast than this Mets itinerary that has them transitioning from home games against the all-time bad Rockies, who are on a crash course to infamy, to travel here the very next day to play the $400 million Dodgers, when healthy perhaps the greatest and deepest collection of baseball talent ever assembled.
Although more than half of LA’s ultra-talented pitching staff is currently inactive, they still lead baseball’s best division and present quite a challenge, as the Yankees learned again this past weekend when they managed to salvage only the finale following a hellacious beatdown that clinched the series for LA.
The danger for the Mets in facing (and naturally sweeping) 9-50 Colorado in the preceding series is that they haven’t faced an honest-to-goodness big league team in days. After what’s tantamount to a three-day respite, starting here late Monday night, they will see 50,000-plus not-so-laid-back Los Angelenos and all the stars they come to cheer.
And yet, here’s why the Mets may fare better here than did their crosstown rival Yankees, who needed yet another miracle from tricky lefty Ryan Yarbrough to save face Sunday after nearly being run out of here the first two games:
