A Test of Their Met-tle: New York Takes NLDS Opener

PHILADELPHIA — I suppose coming back from a 1-0 deficit is child’s play to a team that, last time out, overturned a 2-0 ninth-inning deficit against one of the best closers in the league. A team that clinched its playoff berth with a six-run eighth inning in Atlanta, coughed that lead up, then took it back for good an inning later. A team that, on August 28, was just five games over .500, with a 13.1% chance of making the playoffs.

And this was supposed to be a rebuilding year anyway. After beating the Phillies in Game 1 of the National League Division Series, 6-2, and weathering the best starting pitcher they’re going to see at least in this series, maybe for the rest of the postseason, the Mets now have a chance to go up 2-0 in enemy territory on Sunday. With two advancement-clinching wins already in the bag, and as many iconic victories over the team’s two most hated division rivals, this is the best week the Mets have had in… well, it’s been a while.

Once again, we saw what happens when you let the Mets hang around. After bashing their heads against one of the best playoff starts of Zack Wheeler’s career — which is saying something — the Mets broke through against All-Star relievers Jeff Hoffman and Matt Strahm in the top of the eighth. Five of the six batters to face Hoffman and Strahm reached base, and all who reached base scored.

Reed Garrett, who threw two perfect innings of relief, became the first pitcher since Tim Lincecum in the 2010 NLCS to beat the Phillies in Game 1 of a playoff series. The parade of singles marked the most runs the Phillies have allowed in a postseason inning since Game 2 of the 2022 NLCS (the Nola Family Split Allegiances inning); the last time they allowed more than that was Game 4 of the 1993 World Series.

The eighth-inning reversal was shocking, not just because it came against the three best components (Hoffman, Strahm, and Orion Kerkering, who allowed two inherited runners to score) of a bullpen that’s generally been a strength for the Phillies. But also because of what came before.

Surprise starter Kodai Senga, in just his second competitive appearance of the season, was plenty effective. He threw just 31 pitches to eight batters over two innings, which is to be expected given the long layoff. But he struck out three, got a whiff every time an opponent swung at his forkball, and really only made one mistake.

That mistake came on the third pitch of his outing: A letter-high fastball to Kyle Schwarber.

That ball came off the bat at 115.8 mph, went 425 feet, and landed in the second row of the right field seats at Citizens Bank Park with ease. It was, in form and outcome, quite similar to what happened the last time Schwarber led off the bottom of the first inning of a playoff series: A middle-middle fastball by Zac Gallen, resulting in: KABOOM.

Schwarber’s leadoff home run followed one of the best innings I’ve ever seen from a major league starter. Wheeler threw 11 pitches in the top of the first, all strikes, the first 10 of them fastballs. The Mets swung and missed at six of those pitches, including five fastballs. It set the tone for a continuation of Wheeler’s historic postseason career.

In 2022 and 2023, Wheeler started the series opener four times, and the Phillies won all of them. He entered this series as one of 17 pitchers ever to post a career ERA under 2.50 in 60 or more postseason innings. The only other 21st Century starting pitchers on that list are Curt Schilling and Madison Bumgarner.

In seven imperious innings, totaling a career playoff high 111 pitches, Wheeler induced 55 swings, including 13 foul balls and 30 whiffs. Since the beginning of Baseball Savant’s pitch tracking database in 2008, there had only been 26 previous instances of a pitcher getting 30 swings and misses in a single start. That’s about one and a half per season, across the entire league. Only two — Lincecum in Game 1 of the 2010 NLDS and Gerrit Cole in Game 2 of the 2019 ALDS — came in the playoffs.

“Wheeler was unbelievable,” said Phillies manager Rob Thomson. “We haven’t seen that type of velocity out of him and stuff out of him for a while. It’s as good as it gets.”

Wheeler ultimately moved away from the fastball-heavy approach, spraying breaking balls around the second time through the order. He credited the gameplan to catcher J.T. Realmuto.

“J.T. calls the game,” Wheeler said. “I just try to execute what he calls, and that’s all credit to him. It’s him mixing it up. I saw these guys not too long ago, so you’re going to throw a little wrinkle here and there and mix it up a little bit, but I’m going to stay with my strengths for the most part and just go from there.”

But after Schwarber’s leadoff home run, the Phillies’ offense went dormant. Senga allowed just the one run, followed by scoreless multi-inning stints from left-hander David Peterson, then Garrett. Going righty-lefty-righty the first three times through the order presented an interesting challenge to Thomson, who will shuffle his outfield alignment based on matchups.

Thomson spoke before the game about wanting light-hitting speedster Johan Rojas in center for a game in which he anticipated runs would be hard to come by. With the Phillies in the lead from the start, Rojas stayed in the game until the ninth, even though some extra run support would’ve been nice. And Peterson, the lefty, got to face six left-handed batters, including Schwarber and Bryce Harper twice.

Thomson stuck with his starters, and the potential weak spots proved him right. Marsh, with his 56 wRC+ against lefties this year, came within a few feet of a left-on-left homer off Peterson in the fourth. Rojas led off the next inning with a nine-pitch walk, putting the Phillies in the unusual position of having their fastest player on base for their three best hitters. It came to nothing, with Peterson pulling a superb Lucy-and-the-football act to strike out Harper on four pitches, none of which were in the zone.

That leadoff home run was all the run support Wheeler would end up getting, and apart from the obvious impact of keeping the Mets in striking distance, it impacted the game in two ways.

First, the crowd started at a deafening level, the high grandstands and sharp corners of Citizens Bank Park trapping nearly 46,000 voices and pinging them back around the park. But without another offensive outburst to cheer for, the noise gradually dissipated, like helium leaking from a stricken dirigible. There was no room for error, and everyone knew it.

Including Wheeler. The veteran right-hander never seemed anxious for a moment, but he was cognizant of how damaging one bad pitch could be.

“I did have four walks,” he said, “but those were me just being very careful with a 1-0 lead, and you can’t make mistakes in the playoffs. So if the pitch was up and in, I was going to make sure it was up. I didn’t want anything to leak back or anything like that.”

Wheeler threw just 29% of his pitches in the zone, and for the most part, Mets hitters obliged him and chased. There was next to no hard contact; Wheeler had more batted balls with an exit velocity under 70 mph than over 90 mph, and the first batted ball of the game — a 103.7 mph lineout by Francisco Lindor, which went straight to Harper at first — was the only one off Wheeler with an exit velocity over 95 mph.

But those four walks, plus a hit batter and the one single he allowed, forced Wheeler to work through traffic and elevated his pitch count. This would not be the bullet train of efficiency that was Corbin Burnes’ start on Tuesday — Wheeler had to work hard.

The biggest threat the Mets posed was in the top of the fourth, when Mark Vientos yanked a single to left, followed by a Brandon Nimmo walk.

“My approach today with Wheeler was just trying to be as short as possible. It was tough to see with the shadows,” Vientos said. “I was just trying to put barrel to ball, see what happens. And luckily I got a single out of it and it worked out.”

With the late afternoon start, the shadows were a factor. Nimmo talked after the game about struggling to pick the ball up, and when he could see the pitch, it was a “black ball” and he couldn’t see the laces well enough to pick up the spin.

“What separates aces from the others is that stuff, on top of the location, and their ability to make you chase,” Nimmo said. “So honestly, you’re just trying to stay in the zone, and that’s what separates great hitters as well: Being able to stay in the zone and being able to do damage when they do come in there, but [also] being able to take your walks if that’s what the game asks of you right then.”

And then the key: “I think that’s what helped us to be able to finally get him out of the game.”

Once Wheeler was out, the Mets’ job didn’t get that much easier. Jeff Hoffman was an All-Star this year, and is probably, on balance, the Phillies’ best reliever. But he took the loss without retiring a batter. The Phillies played their first playoff game 109 years ago; since then, they’ve suffered six individual instances of a reliever posting a WPA of -0.50 or worse in a single postseason game.

One of them was a blown save by Hoffman in Atlanta in Game 2 of last year’s NLDS, which was overshadowed by the Phillies’ coming back to win the series, among other events. Another was Black Friday: Game 3 of the 1977 NLCS. Two of the remaining four were Mitch Williams in the 1993 World Series: the aforementioned Game 4, a 15-14 loss to Toronto and one of the wildest games in playoff history, and Game 6: the Joe Carter walk-off.

Hoffman wasn’t Mitch Williams-bad on Saturday. The first batter he faced, Francisco Alvarez, hit a stinging line drive single. But Lindor, the next batter, would’ve been out on a nasty, bouncing 0-2 slider had he not managed to tap it away like a cricket batsman. From there, he worked a seven-pitch walk. Vientos followed by dumping a humpback liner down the line to left, which scored pinch-runner Harrison Bader and forced Thomson to bring his infield in. It was a necessary move, but it’s what allowed the inning to snowball. Facing Strahm with the infield in, Nimmo tagged what would end up being the game-winning single through the hole. The Mets piled on for three more runs, but there would be no mammoth home run, no electrifying double in the corner, no SportsCenter-worthy baserunning.

Single, walk, single, single, sacrifice fly, single, single, sacrifice fly. It was a conga line. An old-school death march of simple, honest on-base ability and productive outs. Against some of the nastiest one-inning relievers in the National League, no less. Do you hate how much teams rely on home runs and strikeouts these days? You must’ve loved the top of the eighth.

The Mets became just the eighth team in major league history to score six or more runs in a postseason game without an extra-base hit. The only other team to do that in the 21st Century was the 2010 Phillies, who put seven runs past the Reds in this very ballpark in Game 2 of the 2010 NLDS.

A lot of unusual things happened in South Philadelphia on Saturday evening. And unusual things — events that send you racing to Stathead or Baseball Savant to find out just how unlikely it is — have become a specialty of the Mets’ these past few weeks.

Is it — if only for alliteration’s sake — magic?

“No,” said Vientos. “I believe in us working hard and the results will happen after.”

The hard work must continue. Wheeler had the game of his life, in his home park, against a patchwork-pitching plan on the other side, and handed a lead to the Phillies’ high-leverage guys. None of it mattered.

The Mets just gave the pre-series favorites a devastating boot in the nuts, and they know they can’t afford to stop kicking until the series is over.

“Winning Game 1 is important. It puts pressure on the other team,” Nimmo said. “But there’s a lot of professionals here. That side has very mature players that have been here and done this before. So they understand that losing Game 1 does not put them down and out. And they will come ready to go tomorrow, there is no question about that.”