At one point early in the post-season, New York Mets manager Terry Collins referred to Matt Harvey as the team’s “ace” pitcher.
It was simply a formality, perhaps even an honorary title given to the man in the play-offs rotation who has the most experience — less than three full seasons.
In fact, Harvey did not even appear until the third game of the opening round against the Los Angeles Dodgers, mainly because the Mets are so flush with talented starting pitching that Collins might as well have picked his pitching order out of his cap.
The truth is, the Mets have four aces, four young, hard-throwers who have been totally unfazed by the pressure of October baseball, and have blazed the team a trail straight to the World Series.
“Blazed” is the appropriate word. Measuring by pure velocity, no one has ever seen pitching like this in a post-season before. As reported by the Wall Street Journal, the Mets delivered more than 40 per cent of their pitches to the Dodgers and Chicago Cubs at 152kph or faster.
Over the eight seasons in which such statistics have been kept, no team ever threw more than 29 per cent of their pitches that hard in a post-season.
Starters Harvey, Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard and Steven Matz, as well as the relief staff led by closer Jeurys Familia, are making life miserable for the opposition, while generating awe on their own side.
“I have the best job in the world,” Mets catcher Travis D’Arnaud told USA Today. “Because I get to work with our pitching staff.”
An ancient law of baseball is that good pitching beats good hitting. The Cubs came into the National League Championship Series (NLCS) against the Mets having scored 20 runs in their previous three games to eliminate the St Louis Cardinals. Against New York, the Cubs totalled eight runs while getting swept out in four games.
The good pitching of the Mets also deflated the collective wish of a nation of fans who had jumped on Chicago’s bandwagon, hoping to witness the Cubs’ first World Series championship since 1908.
“They did not let us up for air at any point,” Cubs manager Joe Maddon said. “They were just that good for four days, man.”
If the Mets pitching showed up in the play-offs as advertised, the team also came up with some unexpected magic — from second baseman Daniel Murphy. After striking a modest 14 home runs during the regular season, Murphy tapped into a historic power surge.
He homered in all four games against the Cubs, giving him home runs in a post-season record six straight games. His victims included the league’s three primary Cy Young Award candidates: Zack Greinke and Clayton Kershaw of the Dodgers, and Jake Arrieta of the Cubs.
“I wish I could explain it,” said Murphy, who was named the NLCS Most Valuable Player. “But I can’t.”
Even if Murphy’s improbable string of home runs ends when the World Series begins next week, the Mets can count on their string of humming fastballs. That is a given.
“When you look at our pitching staff, you just shake your head,” Collins said. “We’re very, very lucky.”
Lucky indeed, when every card you hold is an ace.
Drought ends but Jays celebrate too early
It was an epic celebration, no doubt about it. When the Toronto Blue Jays clinched their American League Division Series against the Texas Rangers with an emotionally charged victory in a winner-take-all Game 5, it touched off a wild celebration at the Rogers Centre, and throughout the Toronto area.
There was a lot building to it, of course. The Jays had gone 22 years without a post-season appearance.
The game also was full of theatre, mainly in a wild seventh inning that went from despair (when the Rangers took the lead on a bizarre, errant throw by catcher Russell Martin) to bliss (a four-run rally capped by Joey Bautista’s tie-breaking, three-run home run.)
So crazy was the electricity that a local tattoo artist created a design of Bautista’s home run pose and over-the-top bat flip, and found a fan willing to have it permanently inked into his thigh. The tattoo got international attention.
The problem? The Jays had more games to play, starting with the AL Championship Series against the Kansas City Royals. Now down 3-2 in the best-of-seven series, the Jays will need to win twice in Kansas City just to make it to the World Series, where the New York Mets await.
It is hard to fault a great party, and we do not begrudge them that. We do worry about the guy with the tattoo, the one featuring the flying bat that quickly came back to earth. Unless Toronto rally, for life the man wears a nice piece of artwork celebrating, uh, the year the Jays did not win.
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