This could be an amazing evening for the New York Mets who are now one victory away from winning the National League Division Series against the Los Angeles Dodgers.
However, it won’t be easy as the Mets have the daunting task of facing LHP Clayton Kershaw (16-7, 2.13) albeit on three days rest. The Mets will counter with rookie LHP Steven Matz (4-0, 2.27) with the first pitch set for 8:05 PM.
Last night, the Mets won the first postseason game in Citi Field history. The sellout crowd of 44,276 was also the largest for a Mets game in Citi Field history and the eighth sellout of the year.
New York scored 13 runs last night, the most for any postseason game in team history. The previous high was 12 runs in Game 4 of the 2006 NLCS at St. Louis.
Mets Starting Lineup
- Curtis Granderson – RF
- David Wright – 3B
- Daniel Murphy – 2B
- Yoenis Cespedes – LF
- Travis d’Arnaud – C
- Lucas Duda – 1B
- Wilmer Flores – SS
- Juan Lagares – CF
- Steven Matz – LHP
The Mets can move on to the NLCS with a victory tonight! The sporting world wanted to know how the Mets would respond to Utley breaking Tejada’s leg on Saturday, and the Mets responded by breaking out the bats.
After a clean first inning, Harvey struggled in the top of the second allowing 4 straight hits plus an error from Granderson leading to a 3-0 Dodgers lead. The Mets immediately responded with 4 straight hits, bringing the score to 3-1 and then Granderson cleared the bases on a double making it 4-3 Mets. Later, d’Arnaud would hit a two run shot and Cespedes would hit an absolute bomb to the outfield putting the game out of reach 10-3, the final score being 13-7.
Steven Matz will make his post season debut tonight. On the season he is 4-0 over 6 starts with a 2.27 ERA over 35.2 innings. He missed his final start (or final two starts, he was at the end of the rotation) of the season due to a back injury and there was some debate whether he would be ready for the post-season ball.
After a “rough” first couple of innings in a simulated game in Florida, by all reports he was on fire. His second start of his career was against the Dodgers where he held them to 2 hits over 6.0 innings while striking out 8. The Dodgers have the following numbers against Matz:
- Hernandez 1-3
- Kendrick 0-3
- Puig 0-3
- Turner 0-3
- Pedersn 0-2
The Mets will get Kershaw on short rest. In the regular season, Kershaw was 16-7 over 33 games with a 2.13 ERA while tossing a league leading 4 complete games and 3 complete game shutouts. In the first game of the postseason he allowed 3 ER over 6.2 innings, striking out 11. In the 2013 postseason he pitched on 3 days rest in a game 4 allowing 2 runs, none earned over 6.0. He did this again in 2014 allowing 3 ER over 6.0 innings. The Mets have the following numbers against Kershaw:
- Wright 3-16, 2B
- Cuddyer 4-19
- Granderson 3-13
- K Johnson 3-15, HR
- Duda 2-12
- Murphy 4-13, HR
- Flores 3-6
Let’s Go Mets! Close This Out!
