For those of you getting squeamish about this upcoming playoff series with the Dodgers, allow me to enumerate at least three reasons for you to relax.
First, there is the long layoff between Sunday’s finale and game one of the NLDS. For as long as many of us can remember, baseball’s post-season would begin close on the heels of the last day of the regular season. Qualifying teams would take a quick breath and get ready to play October baseball two or three days after the regular season ended.
But with the addition of a second wildcard entry, division champions are getting an extra couple of days. The Mets and Dodgers will begin hostilities a full five days after their last regular season games.
Whether wildcard teams receive an advantage by playing their games in the interim between the regular campaign and division series is debatable, but one point is not: the gap in time for division winners serves to entirely reset the terms of play, even more so than it does during the all-star break of identical length (though four playoff teams will play four rather than five days after the last regular game).
Hot teams can not for a moment assume they will remain hot absent live competition for two days short of a full week. Nor can a cold team – like the Mets the last week – assume its slump will carry over.
Examples abound, and one can start by looking no further than the 2014 Washington Nationals. They ended the regular season on the highest of high notes, a no-hitter from Jordan Zimmermann for their 9th win in their last 11 games and 96th of the season. But the first thing I said to myself as I heard of the no-no while sitting at Citi Field enjoying the uplifting final game of last season (highlighted by Duda’s 30th round tripper) was…that five day break is going to be trouble for the Nats. Sure enough, they came out flat as a pancake that Friday and got run over by the inferior – on paper – San Francisco Giants.
But it has often not even taken such a long break for a euphoria or fever to pass. Even a two or three day sojourn can completely extinguish regular season momentum…and slumps. In 2007 (now blessedly reduced to merely a sad chapter in Mets history instead of a haunting and lingering curse), the Phillies went 13-4 and won the division on the last day, ending the season on the highest of highs…and were swept by the Rockies. In 2006, the Cardinals lost 9 of their last 12, limped into the post-season with 84 wins… and won the World Series. In 2000, the Yankees finished with 14 losses in their last 17 games, including the last seven in a row, and of course, won the ultimate prize. Sorry to bring up three examples that victimized the Mets, but you get the point.
To further emphasize the point, the Giants won three titles in five years, without being the best regular season team in any of those years. Hell, they finished with only 88 wins a year ago – losing 6 of their last 10 games – and were essentially the #10 seed, and still took it to the house.
This is why we should hardly be concerned about the Mets 1-5 finish. It was an understandable postpartum for a team that had concluded a seven-week long, emotionally intense, adrenaline-fueled ride to a title for which few thought they could even compete. Sure, teams can not just turn momentum on with a switch, but they now have plenty of time to relax and refuel.
Second, while it would have been better on paper to start the series at home, consider how much better this team has been on the road in the AD (After Deadline) portion of the season than the BC (Before Cespedes) portion…and how much worse they have been at home.
It was actually the Mets’ success on the road that fueled their unforgettable run to the division title. After sweeping the Nationals at Citi in August, the Mets won an incredible 25 of 30 games away from Citi before getting swept in Philly after the clinching, while winning just 11 of 25 on their home turf. While this does not suggest they won’t play well at home this month, it does mean they have broken through whatever barrier had been holding them back on the road, where they will have to win at least one game in order to advance to the NLCS.
Third, we now know those games will start late enough (6 pm PT & 6:45 PT) to guarantee far less of the dreaded late afternoon shadows than originally expected. And let’s not sell Jacob and Noah short – these are dominant, or at worst potentially dominant, pitchers we’re talking about. If we can snag one of the first two in LA, we come back to Citi with the homefield advantage. If we don’t, we still have Harvey going in our most favorable matchup in Game 3, and then…who knows?
And lest we forget, the Mets won the NLDS in both 1999 and 2000 – in game four at home – after starting both series on the road.
We have seen what this team is capable of doing with the pressure on. They needed to sweep the Nationals at home in August. They did. They needed to take two out of three from the Nats on the road in September. They swept. They needed to keep the momentum alive in the aftermath of the memorable series in DC. They swept four in Atlanta. They needed to reverse a 3-6 homestand when they traveled to Cincinnati on that fateful weekend. They scored 22 runs in two games and clinched the division.
They did not accomplish these things with mirrors. It was the result of their usual great pitching, yes, but also a deep and versatile offense with an enviable balance of youth and experience – an attack entirely transformed in a virtual twinkling of an eye by the acquisition, return or promotion of Cespedes, Wright, D’Arnaud, Conforto, K. Johnson and Uribe.
So how then can we be truly concerned about the five losses in garbage time? Or intimidated by playing in big, bad Dodger Stadium? Or freaked out at facing two great starting pitchers, when we have three – albeit younger ones – of our own?
Sure, we could get swept, or lose a longer series. But the bottom line is that everything starts over now. Reset the numbers to zero. Reset the scoreboard. Reset the standings.
Behold, all things are made new in October…and, hopefully for us, November!
