NLDS Game 3: Mets wallop Dodgers 13-7, put L.A. on the brink of elimination
New York Mets fans wanted blood after their team’s controversial loss in Game 2 of the NLDS. And they got it Monday. But it wasn’t from Chase Utley. It was from the entire Los Angeles Dodgers’ roster. The Mets pounded the Dodgers, winning 13-7 and taking a 2-1 lead in the series.
The Mets got a balanced supply of offense and a good-enough performance from ace Matt Harvey, as the Utley drama took a backseat to a good ol’ baseball beatdown. The loss puts the Dodgers on the brink of elimination heading into Game 4 on Tuesday in New York.
• Yoenis Cespedes went big at Citi Field again. We’ll start with the biggest first: His three-run homer in the fourth inning sealed the game for the Mets. It was a behemoth blast and it was one of three hits and three runs scored for Cespedes on the night. The homer is the one that earned him a curtain call, though.
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• Travis d’Arnaud made the Dodgers shake their head a couple of times. The Mets catcher — who is a SoCal native — singled in the first inning to bring home New York’s first run, then his two-run homer in the third inning put a nice distance between the Mets and Dodgers on the scoreboard.
• Curtis Granderson helped the Mets wipe away a 3-1 deficit in the second inning when he unloaded a bases-loaded double. It made the score 4-3 and signaled the Mets’ offense was not going to silenced in Game 3. This wasn’t the dagger, but it quickly neutralized the Dodgers’ early outburst. Granderson finished the night with five RBIs after a seventh-inning double. That one was just the Mets piling on.
• Matt Harvey wasn’t at his Matt Harvey best in Game 3, but he did well enough and didn’t empty his arm in the process. (You know, that innings limit and all). Harvey threw 97 pitches over five innings, allowing three runs on seven hits. He struck out seven. Good enough, right?
• Howie Kendrick hit a three-run homer in the ninth that made the score a more respectable 13-7. It was too late to really matter, though.
• We’ve got to start with Brett Anderson, the Los Angeles Dodgers starter who was lit up for six runs in three innings. The Mets got four in the second inning and two more in the third, which meant the end of the night for Anderson. The Dodgers bullpen isn’t the greatest, so turning this into a bullpen game all but sealed L.A.’s fate.
[Related: Rusty Staub throws out first pitch two weeks after heart attack]
• Mets relief pitcher Erik Goedell, who was getting up some work in slop-up time and, boy, was it ugly. He gave up four hits and three runs without getting an out. It was benign, considering the score, but still not a performance to be happy about.
There were numerous — Cespedes’ homer, Granderson’s bases-loaded double, d’Arnaud’s homer — and they all had one thing in common. They call came with two outs. Just brutal for the Dodgers. It would have been a different if a couple of those two-out threats would have been extinguised.
Bartolo Colon, all 42 years old of him, struck out the side for the Mets in the sixth inning, which is something that hadn’t happened since long before even Colon was born. Via the indispensable Ace of MLB Stats:
• Can the $300-million Dodgers stay alive? Now they turn to their ace, Clayton Kershaw, who is one again tasked with saving the Dodgers’ season on three days’ rest. We’ve seen this play before and it hasn’t ended well for the Dodgers.
• Utley. He didn’t play. But oh well, he’s still the most talked-about guy in MLB right now. The Mets fans booed him and brought signs dissing him, but the Dodgers didn’t bring him off the bench. As the Mets were ahead by seven runs, the Citi Field crowd was still chanting “We Want Utley. We Want Utley.”
• The postseason potential of the Mets, who’ve already showed us they can pitch great. If they’re also crushing the ball at the plate, they could be a very dangerous team capable of a deep October run.
The Mets are now in a position to clinch this series at home with a Game 4 win at Citi Field. The Mets will send rookie Steven Matz (4-0, 2.27 ERA) to the mound against Kershaw (16-7, 2.13 ERA). The game starts at 8 p.m. ET and will air on TBS.
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Mike Oz is the editor of Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @MikeOz
