They didn’t die when they started out the season at 0-5. The Mets didn’t die then, and didn’t die when they were 11 games under .500 before Memorial Day after finishing last season at 12 under. They didn’t die after they’d blown that late-inning lead against the Braves after the regular season had ended for everybody else, and didn’t die when they were down to their last two outs against the Brewers in the wild card series, Game 3.
And when the season was on the line again on Friday at Citi Field, they reminded us who they are, because they have been telling us that and showing us that for months. It’s why the Mets are still alive. Whatever happens from here, in Game 6 at Dodger Stadium and in a Game 7 if they can make it that far, they gave themselves and their fans Game 5. They didn’t come from behind this time, because they jumped on the Dodgers in the bottom of the first and never trailed. It just felt as if they did, because of the way they had been just absolutely flattened in their two previous games in the National League Championship Series.
Come on. Did you really think they would go quietly, even after the Dodgers did everything in the first two games of the NLCS at Citi Field except steal Mets’ valuables out of their lockers? One last time, when they were up against it again, the way they were up against it in Milwaukee before the Polar Bear, Pete Alonso, hit a 3-run jack, the Mets stood up. They stood right up. Of course, it started on Friday with another 3-run homer from Alonso, in the first. The Mets punched back in Game 2 after they had lost Game 1, 9-0. They punched back on Friday after they had been outscored in the last two games by a score of 18-2.
If they do come back and win this thing from 1-3 down — it would be crazy, but something much, much crazier happened to the other New York team 20 years ago — it will be a little bit like the 1960 World Series between the Yankees and Pirates must have looked and felt, when the Yankees outscored the Pirates 38-3 in the three games they won and still lost that series in seven. At this time of year, they only ask you how many games you won, not how you got to the finish line.
As good as the Mets have been since the end of May, as well as they have played over the five months when they’ve had the best record in baseball, you look at them and look at the Dodgers and have to think the Dodgers are better, and not just because of the way they have scored in this series. But in the end, after the Mets won 12-6 in Game 5, this didn’t turn into the 2015 World Series against the Royals, when the Mets couldn’t win Game 5 even after they had the lead. This wasn’t that time when they couldn’t take the series back to Kansas City.
They go back to Los Angeles now for a reckoning against the Dodgers, who were supposed to be the best team this season; who spend money the way Uncle Steve Cohen does. They go back Out There because they got back up one more time, and maybe for the last time this season. David Peterson got out of second and third and nobody out in the top of the first on Friday, and then Francisco Lindor started the bottom of the first with a ringing single to right and Brandon Nimmo, a baller of the first rank, worked a walk and then Alonso hit a home run that felt, in the moment, almost as big as the one he hit one out of the park against the Brewers, when next season was very much in the park in Milwaukee.
After that it felt like just about everybody did something good for the Mets, Peterson and Francisco Alvarez and Starling Marte, another baller, and Jesse Winker, a dirty uniform grinder who would have fit in quite nicely with the Mets of 1986. Two more hits for Lindor, as gifted an all-around baseball player as the Mets have ever had. Two hits for Alonso, who once again showed up when his team needed him most, with those three RBI and four big runs scored.
Finally the closing argument for this game, for sure, was Edwin Diaz coming out of the bullpen to the blare of trumpets in the top of the 8th and gassing Shohei Ohtani and getting Mookie Betts to hit a routine ground ball to end that half-inning. The Dodgers weren’t coming all the way back, as it looked as if they might. They were going home to play more baseball in this National League Championship Series and Carlos Mendoza’s Mets were going with them. Survive and advance. The Mets had won Game 5 and won a shot at Game 6. All they could do as day became night at Citi Field. All their fans could have hoped for, on a day when the Mets rocked the place after things had gotten so quiet, too quiet for too long, on Wednesday and Thursday.
The Mets played one more game that was their season. This time they had been knocked down as hard as they could be, 8-0 and then 10-2 at home. But here they came in Game 5, coming out swinging right out of the gate, bottom of the first. Lindor on base, Alonso making one of those swings that scored them both and tried to blow the doors off the place. Again: Marte and Alvarez and Winker did their share later in this game. But at a moment when the Mets needed their stars to show up, Lindor and Alonso sure did.
They didn’t go down quietly. Didn’t get swept at home, not after the way they’ve played at home this season, one in which they made their fans believe again. Now they send the thing back to Los Angeles. Got themselves more season, after one of the best seasons any Mets team has ever had, whether they end up in a World Series or not.
They still have their shot at holding up their end of a Subway Series. But all they care about for now is this one against the Dodgers, this New York vs. Los Angeles series whether the Yankees are about to get one of those for themselves, or not.
What the Mets were on Friday, when next season was inside Citi Field this time, is exactly who they have been. They don’t die. And feel as alive right now as they ever have, whatever happens at Dodger Stadium. They will write some kind of ending a long way from here. It just wasn’t supposed to end here. And did not.
AARON LOOKING OLD FAR TOO OFTEN FOR JETS, THIS IS STANTON’S OCTOBER & ENOUGH OF A-ROD …
There are a lot of reasons why the Jets are where they are as they head into Pittsburgh for Sunday Night Football.
But there is no bigger reason than this:
The quarterback hasn’t looked like the Aaron Rodgers of old.
Just an old Aaron Rodgers, far too often.
So far, anyway.
So, this is on him the rest of the way.
Not the new coach and not the new play caller and not even Davante Adams.
Him.
Formerly No. 12 of the Packers.
The guy who did a much better job of throwing shade at one of his wide receivers, Mike Williams, than he did throwing Williams the ball.
Rodgers wanted everybody to believe that Williams wasn’t where he was supposed to be at the end of the Bills game.
Guess what?
If Williams had been, the pass Rodgers threw would have looked even worse than it did.
Rodgers pats himself on the back for having been accountable so far when he hasn’t done the job.
Well, accountable-ish.
Here’s the deal:
Tom Brady won when he went to Tampa Bay.
Peyton won when he went to Denver, even when his arm was shot.
Let’s see Rodgers do the same with the Jets.
Those interceptions against the Vikings and Bills didn’t throw themselves.
Imagine what we would have said if Daniel Jones had thrown them.
Let’s see over the rest of the season if the real Hail Mary pass is the one the Jets threw with him.
We expected a power forward in a Yankee uniform to be Mr. October, we just didn’t expect it to be Giancarlo Stanton.
Even if he has been a more dangerous hitter at this time of year than Aaron Judge has been.
It gets lost sometimes that Luke Weaver, who’d been such a star closer for the Yankees until Thursday night, is working on his sixth big-league team, at the age of 31.
Al Pacino’s new memoir, “Sonny Boy,” is one of the best books of this kind I’ve ever read.
Shohei Ohtani, the Sho Hey Kid, is even a show when he’s making outs.
Even the Yankees being where they are doesn’t change the fact that they needed pitching help at the trade deadline and didn’t get it.
By the way?
However this baseball season ends in New York, for both our teams, ask yourself this question:
Which one do you think has the brighter future, Mets or Yankees?
I keep wondering when the Yankees get to play the Twins, too.
Poor Bret Baier is another guy who thinks he won a debate with Kamala Harris.
Pretty sure nobody watching the Fox pregame and postgame shows during the baseball playoffs — and I mean, no one — is wondering why Alex Rodriguez doesn’t have his own talk show.
Man, the last few minutes of that Liberty vs. Lynx game Friday night was a blast.
I was wondering what happened to Saquon.
Yankees vs. Guardians has had everything except midges.
