Daniel Murphy homers off Jake Arrieta, adds another Cy Young contender to hitlist
New York Mets second baseman Daniel Murphy is on quite a postseason run with free agency looming in the offseason.
Murphy, who hit a home run into the second deck at Citi Field in Game 1 of the National League Championship Series off Chicago Cubs starter Jon Lester, followed with a home run off Cy Young Award contender Jake Arrieta in the first inning of Game 2 on Sunday night. Murphy’s homer drove in David Wright and gave the Met’s a 3-0 lead.
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The blast off Arrieta was Murphy’s fifth of the postseason, setting the Mets’ franchise record. He shared the previous record with Carlos Delgado, Mike Piazza and Rusty Staub. Murphy also homered in the NLDS off Dodgers starters and Cy Young contenders Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke.
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Murphy also made a stellar diving stop to end Game 1 of the NLCS. So basically he’s playing about as well as possible at the perfect time of the year for his team and in terms of giving himself some leverage for contract negotiations as a free agent this winter.
Murphy has been so hot, the Cubs actually chose to intentionally walk him in the bottom of the third inning in order to pitch to Yoenis Cespedes, something that would have been unthinkable just a few weeks ago with Cespedes leading the Mets’ charge down the stretch of the regular season.
Now I’m feeling pretty good about Daniel Murphy being 2 of the 9 outs I got…
— Brett Anderson (@BrettAnderson35) October 19, 2015
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Kyle Ringo is a contributing writer to Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @KyleRingo
