Author: Deesha Thosar

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NEW YORK — Friday evening at Citi Field began with The Temptations singing their 1965 hit single “My Girl” in an ode to Francisco Lindor’s walk-up song. Lindor, while warming up on the field, smiled and sang along to the lyrics. Pete Alonso, stretching before what could be his final home game as a Met, joined in, too, and pretty soon the crowd — understandably tense before an elimination game — relaxed a little. Watching the jovial scene unfold in Queens, it was hard to tell that the Mets were backed into a corner. 

If they seemed loose and carefree mere minutes before southpaw David Peterson threw the first pitch of the game, it was because that’s how they showed up to Citi Field ahead of Game 5 of the National League Championship Series. Mets manager Carlos Mendoza walked into the hitters’ meeting and everyone was smiling. Hours before their most important game of the year — yes, another one of those — New York’s happy-go-lucky attitude foreshadowed the pain they would inflict on the Dodgers.

“That’s who we are,” Mendoza said. “There’s no tomorrow for us. But we’ve been in this situation before. So, nothing new.”

After Peterson stranded Mookie Betts and Shohei Ohtani on second and third base in the first inning — lifting the crowd’s energy from unease to optimism — Alonso followed by lifting a three-run blast off Jack Flaherty in the bottom of the frame. The Polar Bear’s fourth home run of October was a harbinger of the offensive outburst that was to come. The Mets tallied 14 hits, the second-most in postseason franchise history, in their 12-6 win over the Dodgers in Game 5. 

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The onslaught was a product of sticking to the plan, capitalizing on Flaherty’s drop in velocity and refusing to chase outside the zone. The Mets wound up tagging Flaherty for eight runs in just three innings. Besides Alonso’s long ball, they drew key walks, enjoyed timely hitting, and played small ball to overwhelm Los Angeles’ pitching staff. Starling Marte went 4-for-5 with three RBIs, Lindor collected a stand-up RBI triple, Jesse Winker reached base in four of his five plate appearances and catcher Francisco Alvarez went 3-for-4, too. On top of all the runs produced, the Mets didn’t strike out once.

It was the kind of complete effort the Mets needed to remind themselves of their ceiling. 

“The quality of at-bats that we had, the intensity that we needed every inning, we understood that,” Lindor said. “And we had to give everything that we had, and that’s what we did.”

As the Dodgers threatened to put an end to this improbable run, the Mets leaned on the experience and the results that got them to this point. Their slugging first baseman, throughout these past few victorious weeks, has been right in the middle of it. Of Alonso’s five career postseason homers, four have given the Mets the lead — including three in the past two weeks alone. Not bad for one of baseball’s most powerful hitters just weeks away from entering free agency. 

Like Mookie Betts said on Wednesday, the Mets didn’t become one of the final four teams standing because of luck. They also didn’t reach this point because of a McDonald’s mascot or a hit Latin pop song. On Friday, the Mets reminded everyone why they’re only two wins away from advancing to the World Series: When they’re at their best, they can beat anyone. 

“We’ll be ready. We love opportunities,” Alonso said. “This is what we want to continue to play for. Today was all about, figure it out, get to Game 6. And we have that opportunity, and it’s going to be the same mentality: figure it out, get to 7. That’s what it is. Survive the day. And we did. And we’re really, really excited for the opportunity coming up.”

In a season overloaded with surprises, the Mets have the opportunity to pull off their greatest upset yet. They forced a flight back to Los Angeles for Game 6, which will take place on Sunday night at Chavez Ravine, by focusing only on the 27 outs that could save their season rather than getting overwhelmed by the big picture. All baseball teams like to say they don’t look too far ahead, and instead prefer to take things day-to-day, but Mendoza’s Mets have executed that mindset better than most this season.

The Mets are attempting to become the ninth team in LCS history (AL or NL) to come back from a 3-1 hole. For motivation, they’ll be reminding themselves that they’re 2-0 in elimination games this year. 

“We’ve had success focusing on the process for 4-5 months now, and it’s not the time to change it,” Brandon Nimmo said. “We’re just trying to beat on that dam until it finally breaks, and it broke tonight.”

On The Temptations’ official website, the Motown legends bill their story as “an epic journey of courage, struggle, triumphs, setbacks, and ultimately, international superstardom.” 

Sounds a lot like the 2024 Mets.

Deesha Thosar is an MLB reporter for FOX Sports. She previously covered the Mets as a beat reporter for the New York Daily News. The daughter of Indian immigrants, Deesha grew up on Long Island and now lives in Queens. Follow her on Twitter at @DeeshaThosar.

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NEW YORK — The Mets have magic. The Dodgers have dominance. 

The Mets have MVP candidates. The Dodgers have MVPs. 

The Mets have OMG. The Dodgers are OMG.

The chasm between them couldn’t have been clearer Thursday night, as the Dodgers won 10-2 and took a commanding 3-1 lead in the National League Championship Series. Los Angeles has won all three of its games by at least eight runs. Game 4 was the most revealing, as Shohei Ohtani and Mookie Betts turned an energized Citi Field into a library by combining for two homers, five hits, five RBIs, three walks and seven runs. 

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“It’s been fun being able to see him perform really well, obviously being in the situation where I’m on base,” Ohtani said of Betts. “So, he looks really good and locked in. My job at that point is to make sure that I score on anything that Mookie really hits.”

Ohtani and Betts have made it seem inevitable that, pretty soon, all the purple Grimaces in the tri-state area will be sent into a winter hibernation. Ohtani sucked the air out of the stadium before fans had even settled into their seats — demolishing a leadoff home run on the second pitch out of the left hand of veteran Jose Quintana and ending the trend that he couldn’t hit with nobody on base. The home run snapped an 0-for-22 stretch for Ohtani without runners on base to begin the postseason. With the Mets apparently choosing to avoid any more damage from the Japanese phenom, Ohtani reached base via a walk in three of his next four plate appearances. 

“Freddie [Freeman] talked to me to make sure that I joined the party earlier than later,” Ohtani said. “So I was able to do that this time in my first at-bat.”

Betts added: “It’s going to be tough to walk him all the time.”

Yeah, no kidding, particularly when the guy hitting behind him is this locked in. Betts, after beginning the postseason hitless in his first nine at-bats, has returned to superstardom. He went 4-for-6, collected a playoff-career-high four RBIs and crushed a towering two-run shot to left field in the sixth — his third homer this postseason — that completely took the Mets out of the game. Betts’ biggest hits of the night came immediately after the Mets made pitching changes, drawing on his clutch gene to power the Dodgers in Game 4. 

Betts now has seven career playoff homers, and he’s the third Dodgers player with at least four hits and at least four RBIs in a postseason game — joining Chris Taylor and Steve Garvey. 

“It’s just so tough for starting pitchers,” said Freeman, who watched Game 4 from the dugout to rest his sprained ankle. “Right out of the gate, you’re facing Hall of Famers. It’s amazing when they’re swinging the bat as good as they are right now. It’s fun to hit behind them.”

Like Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, or Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal, L.A.’s latest legendary tandem was relentless against Mets pitchers in Game 4. Ohtani relied on patience as he drew his walks, and Betts leaned on his timely hitting to force Quintana out of his start with five earned runs in just 3.1 innings. That Ohtani, Betts and the rest of the Dodgers stepped up for 10 runs while Freeman was sidelined on Thursday is a testament to how complete the offense is right now. 

The Dodgers spent more than $1 billion this offseason for this exact reason: overwhelm, exhaust and suffocate the opponent to the point of making any idea of a comeback for the resilient Mets a moot point. The Dodgers have outscored the Mets 30-9 across the first four games in the NLCS. 

“You’ve got to give them credit because that’s a really good lineup and they can do a lot of different things,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said. “This is a team that controls the strike zone as well as anybody in the league. Not only do they do that, but when they force you in the zone, they can do some damage. And they’ve done that. They did it again today.”

As players and managers like to say, everything is magnified at this time of the year. So it takes another level of patience and confidence to be able to handle the quick turnarounds and additional media responsibilities of the postseason. 

Ohtani, experiencing the playoffs for the first time in his seven-year career in the big leagues, zipped around the clubhouse in a frenzy after the Dodgers’ Game 4 win. Sitting on the chair at his locker, he quickly toweled off his jet black hair, jogged back into the bathroom, and hustled back to his locker to collect his belongings: a backpack that he threw over his shoulder, a hat that he wore backwards, and a pair of headphones that he held in his hand. Then he rushed behind an MLB staff member out of the clubhouse and into the news conference room to talk about his night at the plate and the Dodgers being one win away from the World Series. 

As for Betts, playing in his eighth career postseason, he was operating at a more leisurely pace. As he walked down the Citi Field tunnel on his way to sit in front of countless cameras and reporters, he stopped to hug his family and fist bump a lucky fan who was exiting the stadium. If Betts seemed calm after the game, it was because he spent the rest of his free time swinging in the cages. Freeman joked that if all of that cage work has worked so well for Betts, the first baseman might soon try that approach too. 

“A lot of stuff has clicked and hasn’t worked and some of it has worked,” Betts said of his preparation. “Today it worked. But tomorrow is a new day, and I’ll come work and try and find the same feel.”

Not much was working for the team from Queens. As for why the Mets are backed into a corner, facing the worst-case scenario where they face elimination for the remainder of the series, they failed to capitalize on their chances on Thursday. There was heartbreak in the sixth inning when they loaded the bases with nobody out and didn’t score a single run. Then there was embarrassment in the eighth inning as the Dodgers continued to pile on and the stadium all but emptied with six outs still to go. 

The Dodgers, playoff veterans, did the equivalent of stuffing the new kid at school into a locker. It’s hard to see these Mets getting out of Citi Field with any games left to play.

Deesha Thosar is an MLB reporter for FOX Sports. She previously covered the Mets as a beat reporter for the New York Daily News. The daughter of Indian immigrants, Deesha grew up on Long Island and now lives in Queens. Follow her on Twitter at @DeeshaThosar.

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NEW YORK — Walker Buehler lives for October. 

It’s the first thing he said after he helped the Los Angeles Dodgers clinch the division last month. Their late September game against the rival Padres had a playoff feel to it, and after months spent battling through up-and-down results, his return to dominance against San Diego gave Buehler more confidence that he could step up for his club when it needs him the most. 

That time came Wednesday in a pivotal Game 3 of the National League Championship Series, where it was up to Buehler to set the tone against the New York Mets. With the series tied at one game apiece, and the Mets holding home-field advantage, it would take a gutsy outing from Buehler to give Los Angeles’ lineup enough breathing room to do its job.

Not only did Buehler deliver, he put on a show we haven’t seen from the 30-year-old in a few years. 

“It’s so overused, but pressure is a privilege,” Buehler said. “Talking about how many starts I’ve gotten to make, that’s the privilege part of it, right? I’ve gotten to do this a lot of times, and these games certainly get me excited, but they don’t overwhelm me like they used to when I was young my first couple of [playoff] starts. I’m just fortunate to be a part of this organization and a part of this team, specifically.”

Buehler allowed just three hits and struck out six across four scoreless frames in the Dodgers’ 8-0 rout over the Mets at Citi Field. He finished his outing by retiring seven straight batters, but no moment encapsulated his spunky performance better than his drama-fueled second-inning matchup against Francisco Lindor. 

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With two outs and the bases loaded, the Mets were threatening to erase Los Angeles’ 2-0 lead when their MVP shortstop dug into the box. But Buehler had a game plan to follow, and he wasn’t going to let New York’s best hitter get in the way of executing it. He peppered his best offspeed pitch of the night, a 78 mph knuckle curveball, in between his 95 mph heater enough times that Lindor got off balance. Finally, with the count full and 43,883 fans on their feet, Buehler got Lindor to swing and miss at yet another curveball to end the inning and the threat. He walked off the mound screaming into the frigid October air, daring the Mets to even attempt to hit him. 

“For me, personally, it’s huge,” Buehler said of striking out Lindor. “I think the last time I really made a pitch like that, in the playoffs, that kind of got it through was 2020 [NLCS] against Atlanta.”

Buehler said he channeled “the fear of pitching the way I pitched all year” in order to get out of the bases-loaded jam. He struggled to find his new identity during his return from Tommy John surgery this season, posting a 5.84 ERA across his first eight starts of 2024 before landing on the injured list with hip inflammation in June. Once he started trusting his mechanics again, Buehler said throwing a big pitch in a big spot was one of the final items on his checklist that would prove to him that he was back in pre-surgery form. 

Buehler squandered that opportunity in Game 3 of the NLDS versus the Padres, who tagged him for six runs in the second inning of a Dodgers defeat. Facing another stress-filled second inning Wednesday, after surrendering two walks and an infield single to load the bases, Buehler prevailed with back-to-back strikeouts — capped by the curve to Lindor.

“I don’t think anyone over there would’ve expected Walker to throw that pitch in that situation,” third baseman Max Muncy said. “That’s why Walker did it.”

As much as the Dodgers needed the win, this was the game the Mets perhaps had to take. With Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Jack Flaherty coming up in Games 4 and 5, Wednesday was New York’s best opportunity to place Los Angeles at a disadvantage. Jose Quintana is toeing the hill for the Mets on Thursday, so they were hoping to charge ahead to a 3-1 series lead by the time Friday’s Game 5 rolled around. But Buehler had other plans.

Expertly relying on his offspeed pitches to keep Mets hitters off balance, Buehler had registered more swings-and-misses (11) by the end of the second inning than he had in his five innings against the Padres last week (8). According to Elias Sports Bureau, Buehler’s 18 total swings-and-misses were his most since 2021, and the most through the first four innings of a postseason game by any pitcher since Kyle Lohse in 2003. The Dodgers would’ve loved for the right-hander to pitch beyond the fourth inning given the way he was dealing. But since Buehler averaged more than 20 pitchers per inning, he only faced the Mets twice through the order. 

That wasn’t a problem for Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, who prepared for a situation like Game 3 — where several innings had to be covered by his high-leverage relief arms. After Buehler’s night ended somewhat early, Michael Kopech, Ryan Brasier, and Blake Treinen combined to throw three shutout innings and register four strikeouts while allowing just one hit from the ‘pen. Catcher Will Smith said Brasier’s double-play ball to Jose Iglesias that ended the sixth inning completely eradicated any chance for the Mets to build momentum.

He was right. Dodgers bats continued to pile on — including home runs from Shohei Ohtani, Kiké Hernández and Muncy — while the Mets’ slim hopes for a comeback, no matter how resilient they’ve been this postseason, fully slipped away. But the belief that New York could get a series lead was already on its way out the door with every inning Buehler put up a zero.

“In my career here as a Dodger, Walker’s probably been one of the most big-time playoff pitchers that I’ve seen,” Treinen said. “I think for him, coming back from the surgery, there’s been a lot of learning on the fly. And what he’s been able to do recently, the results haven’t always matched how well he’s pitched. Today was nice to see the results match the hard work he’s putting in.”

Buehler’s 17 playoff starts rank second to only Clayton Kershaw in Dodgers franchise history. Prior to undergoing a second UCL reconstruction in August 2022, he carried a phenomenal 2.94 career ERA in October. Though that mark took a hit in the NLDS, Buehler was able to rebound with three clean frames versus the Padres — after they initially rocked him — to jumpstart the Dodgers’ record-tying 33 scoreless innings in the postseason. 

On Wednesday, as he traversed the long and winding road that has forced the two-time All-Star to reinvent himself, Buehler reminded baseball of one thing as he led the Dodgers to an enormous win: He is still Walker Buehler.

Deesha Thosar is an MLB reporter for FOX Sports. She previously covered the Mets as a beat reporter for the New York Daily News. The daughter of Indian immigrants, Deesha grew up on Long Island and now lives in Queens. Follow her on Twitter at @DeeshaThosar.

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NEW YORK — Typically, when Aaron Judge connects on a high fastball, there is little doubt about how far it will go, and where it will land. But lately, the results of his at-bats haven’t been as much of a foregone conclusion. 

Not only was the Bronx crowd unsure whether Judge’s fly ball would go out as it traveled toward the deepest part of Yankee Stadium in the seventh inning Tuesday night, even his own teammate of seven years wasn’t convinced. Gleyber Torres, who was on base with a single, tagged up at first as the entire stadium held its breath. By the time the ball landed beyond the wall, Judge had already caught up to Torres at first base, barely a step or two behind him. He let Torres start jogging before beginning his home run trot.

“He did that this year earlier, too, so I was pretty pissed then,” Judge quipped of Torres tagging up. “I was pretty pissed again. … You never know, when it’s windy like this, what the ball is going to do in center field. He’s trying to get into scoring position. So I let this one slide.”

First baseman Anthony Rizzo joked that he expected better from Torres.

“I’m a little disappointed in Gleyber for not knowing Judge’s pop there,” Rizzo said while smirking. “We were ribbing him a lot about that. It’s a big swing for Judgey. He’s had really good at-bats and come up in big situations. To get the home run, it was a really easy swing, and he’s the best in the business at that.”

Judge’s two-run shot in the seventh inning of the Yankees‘ 6-3 win over the Guardians marked his first home run of this postseason. Before Tuesday night, his last playoff home run was in Game 5 of the 2022 ALDS — also against Cleveland. He had gone 35 postseason at-bats without a homer, and boy would the Yankees be thrilled if the worst is finally behind him. 

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The Yankees captain entered Game 2 of the American League Championship Series batting .133 (2-for-15) with a .564 OPS and just one RBI across five playoff games this fall. This wasn’t the first time in his career he went from being a nuisance in the regular season to a lesser concern in the playoffs. After crushing 62 home runs in an MVP season in 2022, Judge went 5-for-36 with three RBIs and two walks over nine games that October. Until he got the monkey off his back Tuesday night, Judge’s playoff slide had reached the point where even the opposing team wasn’t so afraid of the mighty slugger.

Guardians manager Stephen Vogt went so far as to pull the ultimate insult in the second inning when he opted to intentionally walk Juan Soto to load the bases for Judge. The decision seemed to bewilder Judge’s teammates in the Yankees dugout. Anthony Volpe waved his arms in front of him and declared, “No way! No way!” Jazz Chisholm stared into Cleveland’s dugout with wide eyes, in apparent disbelief. 

“That’s super disrespectful,” Chisholm told FOX Sports of intentionally walking Soto ahead of Judge. “It’s Soto, we understand he’s playing great and everything. I mean, I would walk Soto in any other situation. But it’s an insult there.”

Left-hander Nestor Cortes added: “That’s crazy. You’re intentionally walking Soto to pitch to the MVP.”

Judge, who responded by hitting a sacrifice fly to center field and padded New York’s lead to 3-0 in the process, downplayed Cleveland’s decision. He said he didn’t take it personally and joked that he “would probably walk Soto, too, at this point.” But Judge’s teammate Oswaldo Cabrera told FOX Sports he thought the intentional walk to Soto might have woken Judge up. Cabrera believes Judge wants those types of moments to remind himself he’s the captain of the Yankees and provide another edge to his at-bats.

Judge being woken up out of his postseason slumber should petrify opposing teams, particularly because the Yankees were managing just fine without him hitting the cover off of the ball. The Bronx Bombers comfortably dismissed the Royals in the ALDS, and they had a 4-2 lead against Cleveland on Tuesday before Judge raised the decibel level in the seventh inning. Though he has helped out and has had better swings and productive at-bats, New York has now cruised to a 2-0 lead in the ALCS against the Guardians without Judge’s heroics. 

That is to say, Judge is warming up at exactly the right time. If the Yankees take care of business the rest of this series — and all signs are flashing that they will — then they will need the monster, MVP version of Judge to win against more potent offenses in the World Series. The National League Championship Series features two more formidable lineups than Cleveland’s, and whichever team comes out of that alive knows it will need to mash against the Juan Soto and Judge-powered Yankees. 

“Always a matter of time with Aaron,” manager Aaron Boone said. “Definitely good to see him put one in the seats and really give us a cushion there.”

The Guardians, Dodgers and Mets can only hope Judge is not just getting started.

Deesha Thosar is an MLB reporter for FOX Sports. She previously covered the Mets as a beat reporter for the New York Daily News. The daughter of Indian immigrants, Deesha grew up on Long Island and now lives in Queens. Follow her on Twitter at @DeeshaThosar.

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NEW YORK — This is why the Yankees are paying Carlos Rodón $162 million over six years: to have a top-notch poker face. 

Rodon’s biggest challenge taking the mound for Game 1 of the American League Championship Series wasn’t navigating Cleveland’s dangerous lineup. Rodón’s greatest enemy was actually himself. 

When the veteran allows his emotions to take control over his outing, things can quickly get out of whack. It’s what happened in his first start this postseason against the Royals; he was amped too early and too often — sticking his tongue out and gaping after a first-inning strikeout — and allowed his focus to slip away from the task at hand. He was pulled after coughing up four earned runs in just 3.2 innings against Kansas City.

But he learned a lot in the week between his next playoff start. He studied Gerrit Cole, received advice from Andy Pettitte, and said he would be better his next time out. Even so, it’s one thing to do all the prep, but it’s another to actually execute on the mound — no less in a playoff start. 

Finally, in his team’s 5-2 win over the Guardians on Monday night at Yankee Stadium, the fiery left-hander put his career 11.37 postseason ERA in the rearview and pitched with authority. 

“The goal was to stay in control,” Rodón said. “Stay in control of what I can do, physically and emotionally. I thought I executed that well tonight.”

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He was being modest. Rodón struck out nine batters and allowed just one run on three hits across six innings, and kept his emotions in check every time. But it was easy to tell this was a battle for Rodón. Being nonreactive isn’t exactly second nature for him. He seemed to be putting as much effort into controlling his emotions as he was into his pitch diet of fastballs, sliders, curveballs and changeups. Rather than acknowledge the crowd’s raucous energy with some of his own, Rodón rolled his shoulders back and kept his head down on the mound. The southpaw proceeded to register 25 swings and misses.

He was locked in, and it manifested. 

Rodón’s only blemish of the night came on a Brayan Rocchio home run to lead off the sixth inning. But there was no ensuing meltdown. There was no look of befuddlement as he watched Rocchio’s long ball sail over the left-field wall. He retired the next three batters and finished his outing by pointing his glove at Aaron Judge, who ran down a rocket off José Ramírez’s bat for the final out of the sixth. Rodón sent down the Guardians slugger all three times he faced him.

“I think he was very aware of what the last outing ended up being and just how the emotions got away from him early,” Yankees pitching coach Matt Blake said. “That was going to be a focus for him throughout the game. Each inning you could tell he was trying to stay steady and be neutral about it and just keep collecting outs.”

While Rodón went to work, the Yankees piled on. Juan Soto slammed his first postseason home run as a Yankee in the third inning, putting New York on the board with a 1-0 lead. Giancarlo Stanton added insurance in the seventh with his second home run of the postseason, which was his 13th career playoff jack since 2018. Stanton has a 1.244 OPS in five postseason games this October. But while Soto, Stanton and Aaron Judge all collected RBIs in the Game 1 victory, it was Rodón who stood out as the game changer.

“He was the driver tonight,” Stanton said of Rodón. “Juan got us going on the offensive side, but Carlos was holding them down and giving us a chance to score and add to it.”

Rodón didn’t achieve this picture of poise on his own. 

Days after the Royals detected that his emotions were running high and sent him packing in the fourth inning, Rodón sought out advice from Pettitte, the former Yankees southpaw and five-time World Series champion, on how to keep a good poker face on the mound. Pettitte, currently in an advisor role with the Yankees, won 63.3% of his postseason decisions in part by refusing to allow the opponent in on what he was thinking and feeling. Rodón said Pettitte’s advice left an impression. 

Then, while Cole dominated the Royals in Kansas City last Thursday, Rodón leaned on the dugout railing and closely watched his every reaction. Captivated, Rodón kept his eyes focused on Cole even as drama unfolded between Anthony Volpe and Maikel Garcia at second base. Rodón watched as Cole became agitated without letting the situation ruin what had been a strong outing. 

“You can tell he gets a little pissed off,” Rodón said of Cole. “But he kind of just keeps it in frame and gets back on the mound. They do end up scoring a run, but he keeps them to one run. The biggest thing I saw from him in the seventh, he didn’t react every inning. If you watched him come out, it’s just like a robot walking to the dugout. Then at the end of the seventh, it’s a big roar because he knows, I did my job. I think that’s one thing that resonated with me from that start.”

Rodón tried to be like Cole the robot against Cleveland and, for the most part, he was. His six innings of one-run ball weren’t just important for the Yankees, who took a 1-0 series lead over the Guardians to begin the ALCS, but an enormous response to the criticism manager Aaron Boone received for going with Rodón in the first place. With Cole slotted for Game 2 on four days’ rest, Boone was choosing between right-hander Clarke Schmidt or Rodón for the series opener. Cleveland was the third-best offensive team in the AL against left-handers in the regular season, so no one would’ve blamed Boone if he opted to start Schmidt in Game 1. 

But Rodón was signed by the Yankees for moments like Monday; a packed house of 47,264 in the Bronx, doing his part as the rotation’s lethal 1-2 punch alongside Cole, all while being accountable in front of the zoo that is the New York media.

The mental and physical flow Rodón realized in Game 1 was the elixir to the ghastly postseason ERA he brought into Monday night’s outing. This was exactly what the Yankees expected from Rodón when they made him the highest-paid pitcher in the 2023 free-agent class. After being limited to just 14 starts because of injuries last year, and posting a dreadful 6.85 ERA in the process, this was Rodón’s year to start earning his contract. He showed up to spring training noticeably slimmer, then stayed out of the trainer’s room all season, and bounced back with a 3.96 ERA across a career-high 32 healthy starts and 175 innings. 

Rodón’s 26-week stretch of being a workhorse in the regular season helped the Yankees get to this point, particularly when Cole missed the first two-plus months with an elbow injury. But Rodón can give the Yankees a bigger, more important lift by replicating this routine his next time out.

The Yankees are three wins from advancing to the World Series. Rodón can count on one hand how many more times he will need his poker face.

Deesha Thosar is an MLB reporter for FOX Sports. She previously covered the Mets as a beat reporter for the New York Daily News. The daughter of Indian immigrants, Deesha grew up on Long Island and now lives in Queens. Follow her on Twitter at @DeeshaThosar.

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NEW YORK — Katia Lindor closed her eyes and started praying. 

When she opened them, the ball off Francisco Lindor’s bat was still in the air — and heading toward the fence in right-center field. “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon,” she told herself as it continued to sail. Finally, the ball landed beyond the fence and into the visitor’s bullpen. Pandemonium ensued around her, a blur of fans in orange and blue jumping up and down and making the ground shake. 

She started crying. 

“It’s almost like a weight is lifted off our shoulders where it’s like, people finally appreciate him, and they see his value,” Lindor’s wife said. “I think they’re starting to see it beyond the field, too, and definitely on the field. I’m so proud of him. I’m in awe of him every day. His hard work is just incessant. He does not take his responsibility and his role lightly.”

Lindor’s sixth-inning grand slam was perhaps the biggest home run in Citi Field’s brief history, and perhaps the best swing of his life. In one fell swoop Wednesday, the hit put the Mets on the board, gave them the lead and accounted for all of their offense in a 4-1 victory that eliminated the rival Phillies from the postseason and sent New York to the National League Championship Series for the first time since 2015. 

The series-cliching grand slam — a true fairytale moment for Queens — also served as a metaphor for all that Lindor means to this Mets organization. 

“I want to win it all. I want to win it all,” Lindor said. “And ours will be a team that will forever be remembered. This will be a team that comes every 10 years and eats for free everywhere they go. And I want to do that. I want to do that. But the job is not done.”

Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns, eyes red from champagne and hysteria, said anyone who’s watched Lindor step up in clutch situations this year had a feeling he would be the one to deliver the big hit in a tight Game 4 of the NLDS. 

“I don’t know that there’s another player in baseball you want at the plate right now in that situation,” Stearns said.

Just nine days ago, which can feel like nine weeks in October, Lindor swatted a go-ahead, eighth-inning two-run homer against the Braves to seal the Mets’ playoff spot. Over the next week, Lindor continually reached base to set up key home runs for his teammates, including Pete Alonso’s ninth-inning three-run blast in a winner-takes-all wild-card game against the Brewers and Mark Vientos‘ ninth-inning two-run shot that tied Game 2 of the NLDS versus Philadelphia. It’s hard to believe Lindor’s dramatic grand slam on a 100 mph offering from Carlos Estévez was his first home run of this postseason given how much he’s contributed to every win. 

​​”The whole time, I was like, this is who we are,” manager Carlos Mendoza said he was thinking as Citi Field erupted. “This is part of the story. This is part of the book, the movie, whatever you want to call it. When he connected to that ball, I just wanted [Lindor] to enjoy it.”

“I don’t remember putting my hands up. But my hands were just, like, in the air,” Alonso said of his reaction to Lindor’s grand slam. “Just an unbelievable swing. I mean, that was a swing of a lifetime. That’s what you practice in the backyard, as a kid growing up.”

It’s not hyperbole to say that the shortstop has led every step of the way — from an 0-5 start to the season to being 11 games under .500 in late May through being snubbed for the All-Star Game — in the Mets’ improbable odyssey to the NLCS. Lindor’s attention to detail and ability to stay level-headed in stressful situations are only a couple of reasons why his teammates describe him as an assassin, consistent, their MVP, their leader, and their captain. Stearns said the 30-year-old Lindor has structured his entire life to do what he did Wednesday night at Citi Field.

His latest act of leadership arrived not in the sixth inning but the ninth, after Edwin Díaz walked his first two batters on 10 pitches. The embattled Mets closer was walking the tightrope of preserving a three-run lead when pitching coach Jeremy Hefner called for a mound visit. 

Díaz tried to pump himself up by repeating, “Let’s go, let’s go.” That’s when Lindor got in Díaz’s ear: “Don’t say, ‘let’s go,'” Lindor told him. “Just do it.”

In an instant, Díaz, who’d been struggling to locate, locked in and threw his 99 mph fastballs right where he wanted them — blowing them by pinch-hitter Kody Clemens for a strikeout. After inducing a flyout, Díaz quickly got ahead of postseason titan Kyle Schwarber before putting him away with a 101 mph heater to shut the door on the NL East champions’ season. 

As the Mets’ dugout swarmed the field, something magnificent ensued: Rather than rush to the mound, the entire Mets roster sprinted to where Lindor was standing in the infield dirt and enveloped him with a hug. Then, and only then, did his emotionless facade fade away. He smiled, he cried, he laughed, and he looked around at the Citi Field crowd and took it all in. 

“We’re blessed to do this in front of the fans,” a red-eyed Lindor told FOX’s Tom Verducci. “We just keep climbing. My at-bat doesn’t come up if it wasn’t for the guys in front of me. Today I was the one who drove in runs, but it could have been anybody.”

But it was most likely to be Lindor, and it allowed a long-suffering fan base to witness a series win in Flushing for the first time since 2000.

“Great ball players do great things,” Mets owner Steve Cohen said of Lindor’s slam. “It was bases loaded. It was a big moment, so I was standing up. You knew something was going to happen.”

As has been his style this fall, Lindor was straight-faced and locked in as he rounded the bases following his homer. Somehow, he was the only one keeping it together while the rest of Queens lost their minds. Outfielder Jesse Winker described Lindor as a “stone-cold killer.” Lindor’s low-key reactions are a departure from the explosive, celebratory displays he used to show in his previous postseasons with Cleveland. A few teammates asked Lindor about it, and he told them that he wouldn’t celebrate until the job was done, until the Mets got the final out of the World Series. 

Just 24 hours earlier, Lindor said this was the calmest he’s ever felt in his six career trips to the playoffs. 

“I don’t know, for some reason the reactions from me this year haven’t been as jumpy or as excited,” he said Tuesday. “I don’t know if it has to do with being tired or if it has to do with just trying to stay in the moment, that I don’t have that crazy reaction I usually have. It’s just, I’m in a good place right now. I’m living the life I always wanted.”

So are the Mets.

As the team celebrated on the field in dark black T-shirts soaked in champagne, one fan held up a sign that said, “Believe in miracles.” Another read “DESTINY” in orange lettering. That’s what the 2024 Mets are playing like: a team of destiny that is resilient above all else. When they rolled into spring training, the Mets had a 2.2% chance of winning the NLCS, according to FanGraphs’ playoff odds. That same projection system gave them a 1% chance of winning the World Series. Now, the Mets are just eight victories away. 

Stearns had a few choice words for those who’ve criticized this Mets’ core — led by Lindor, Alonso and Brandon Nimmo — and questioned whether they could win big games.

“I think they’ve shown that’s bull****,” he said. “This core has been winning games since June 1. So, we can put that to bed right now.”

And yet, Mendoza asserted afterward that the Mets, who in fact have the best record in baseball since June 1, haven’t done anything yet. Lindor said he’s not even close to satisfied. The Mets are enjoying the moment, no doubt. But they’re still hungry, and that should be a terrifying sign for their next opponent. The Mets enter the NLCS as perhaps the most consistent team in baseball. 

“This is what I wanted. I came here to play winning baseball and get opportunities to try to win a World Series,” Lindor said, his play having already carried these Mets further than anyone outside of their clubhouse imagined. “We got to keep on climbing.” 

Deesha Thosar is an MLB reporter for FOX Sports. She previously covered the Mets as a beat reporter for the New York Daily News. The daughter of Indian immigrants, Deesha grew up on Long Island and now lives in Queens. Follow her on Twitter at @DeeshaThosar.

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NEW YORK — Katia Lindor closed her eyes and started praying. 

When she opened them, the ball off Francisco Lindor’s bat was still in the air — and heading toward the fence in right-center field. “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon,” she told herself as it continued to sail. Finally, the ball landed beyond the fence and into the visitor’s bullpen. Pandemonium ensued around her, a blur of fans in orange and blue jumping up and down and making the ground shake. 

She started crying. 

“It’s almost like a weight is lifted off our shoulders where it’s like, people finally appreciate him, and they see his value,” Lindor’s wife said. “I think they’re starting to see it beyond the field, too, and definitely on the field. I’m so proud of him. I’m in awe of him every day. His hard work is just incessant. He does not take his responsibility and his role lightly.”

Lindor’s sixth-inning grand slam was perhaps the biggest home run in Citi Field’s brief history, and perhaps the best swing of his life. In one fell swoop Wednesday, the hit put the Mets on the board, gave them the lead and accounted for all of their offense in a 4-1 victory that eliminated the rival Phillies from the postseason and sent New York to the National League Championship Series for the first time since 2015. 

The series-cliching grand slam — a true fairytale moment for Queens — also served as a metaphor for all that Lindor means to this Mets organization. 

“I want to win it all. I want to win it all,” Lindor said. “And ours will be a team that will forever be remembered. This will be a team that comes every 10 years and eats for free everywhere they go. And I want to do that. I want to do that. But the job is not done.”

Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns, eyes red from champagne and hysteria, said anyone who’s watched Lindor step up in clutch situations this year had a feeling he would be the one to deliver the big hit in a tight Game 4 of the NLDS. 

“I don’t know that there’s another player in baseball you want at the plate right now in that situation,” Stearns said.

Just nine days ago, which can feel like nine weeks in October, Lindor swatted a go-ahead, eighth-inning two-run homer against the Braves to seal the Mets’ playoff spot. Over the next week, Lindor continually reached base to set up key home runs for his teammates, including Pete Alonso’s ninth-inning three-run blast in a winner-takes-all wild-card game against the Brewers and Mark Vientos‘ ninth-inning two-run shot that tied Game 2 of the NLDS versus Philadelphia. It’s hard to believe Lindor’s dramatic grand slam on a 100 mph offering from Carlos Estévez was his first home run of this postseason given how much he’s contributed to every win. 

​​”The whole time, I was like, this is who we are,” manager Carlos Mendoza said he was thinking as Citi Field erupted. “This is part of the story. This is part of the book, the movie, whatever you want to call it. When he connected to that ball, I just wanted [Lindor] to enjoy it.”

“I don’t remember putting my hands up. But my hands were just, like, in the air,” Alonso said of his reaction to Lindor’s grand slam. “Just an unbelievable swing. I mean, that was a swing of a lifetime. That’s what you practice in the backyard, as a kid growing up.”

It’s not hyperbole to say that the shortstop has led every step of the way — from an 0-5 start to the season to being 11 games under .500 in late May through being snubbed for the All-Star Game — in the Mets’ improbable odyssey to the NLCS. Lindor’s attention to detail and ability to stay level-headed in stressful situations are only a couple of reasons why his teammates describe him as an assassin, consistent, their MVP, their leader, and their captain. Stearns said the 30-year-old Lindor has structured his entire life to do what he did Wednesday night at Citi Field.

His latest act of leadership arrived not in the sixth inning but the ninth, after Edwin Díaz walked his first two batters on 10 pitches. The embattled Mets closer was walking the tightrope of preserving a three-run lead when pitching coach Jeremy Hefner called for a mound visit. 

Díaz tried to pump himself up by repeating, “Let’s go, let’s go.” That’s when Lindor got in Díaz’s ear: “Don’t say, ‘let’s go,'” Lindor told him. “Just do it.”

In an instant, Díaz, who’d been struggling to locate, locked in and threw his 99 mph fastballs right where he wanted them — blowing them by pinch-hitter Kody Clemens for a strikeout. After inducing a flyout, Díaz quickly got ahead of postseason titan Kyle Schwarber before putting him away with a 101 mph heater to shut the door on the NL East champions’ season. 

As the Mets’ dugout swarmed the field, something magnificent ensued: Rather than rush to the mound, the entire Mets roster sprinted to where Lindor was standing in the infield dirt and enveloped him with a hug. Then, and only then, did his emotionless facade fade away. He smiled, he cried, he laughed, and he looked around at the Citi Field crowd and took it all in. 

“We’re blessed to do this in front of the fans,” a red-eyed Lindor told FOX’s Tom Verducci. “We just keep climbing. My at-bat doesn’t come up if it wasn’t for the guys in front of me. Today I was the one who drove in runs, but it could have been anybody.”

But it was most likely to be Lindor, and it allowed a long-suffering fan base to witness a series win in Flushing for the first time since 2000.

“Great ball players do great things,” Mets owner Steve Cohen said of Lindor’s slam. “It was bases loaded. It was a big moment, so I was standing up. You knew something was going to happen.”

As has been his style this fall, Lindor was straight-faced and locked in as he rounded the bases following his homer. Somehow, he was the only one keeping it together while the rest of Queens lost their minds. Outfielder Jesse Winker described Lindor as a “stone-cold killer.” Lindor’s low-key reactions are a departure from the explosive, celebratory displays he used to show in his previous postseasons with Cleveland. A few teammates asked Lindor about it, and he told them that he wouldn’t celebrate until the job was done, until the Mets got the final out of the World Series. 

Just 24 hours earlier, Lindor said this was the calmest he’s ever felt in his six career trips to the playoffs. 

“I don’t know, for some reason the reactions from me this year haven’t been as jumpy or as excited,” he said Tuesday. “I don’t know if it has to do with being tired or if it has to do with just trying to stay in the moment, that I don’t have that crazy reaction I usually have. It’s just, I’m in a good place right now. I’m living the life I always wanted.”

So are the Mets.

As the team celebrated on the field in dark black T-shirts soaked in champagne, one fan held up a sign that said, “Believe in miracles.” Another read “DESTINY” in orange lettering. That’s what the 2024 Mets are playing like: a team of destiny that is resilient above all else. When they rolled into spring training, the Mets had a 2.2% chance of winning the NLCS, according to FanGraphs’ playoff odds. That same projection system gave them a 1% chance of winning the World Series. Now, the Mets are just eight victories away. 

Stearns had a few choice words for those who’ve criticized this Mets’ core — led by Lindor, Alonso and Brandon Nimmo — and questioned whether they could win big games.

“I think they’ve shown that’s bull****,” he said. “This core has been winning games since June 1. So, we can put that to bed right now.”

And yet, Mendoza asserted afterward that the Mets, who in fact have the best record in baseball since June 1, haven’t done anything yet. Lindor said he’s not even close to satisfied. The Mets are enjoying the moment, no doubt. But they’re still hungry, and that should be a terrifying sign for their next opponent. The Mets enter the NLCS as perhaps the most consistent team in baseball. 

“This is what I wanted. I came here to play winning baseball and get opportunities to try to win a World Series,” Lindor said, his play having already carried these Mets further than anyone outside of their clubhouse imagined. “We got to keep on climbing.” 

Deesha Thosar is an MLB reporter for FOX Sports. She previously covered the Mets as a beat reporter for the New York Daily News. The daughter of Indian immigrants, Deesha grew up on Long Island and now lives in Queens. Follow her on Twitter at @DeeshaThosar.

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NEW YORK — Aaron Judge is making history again, only this time in infamy. 

After all the triumphs of his spectacular regular season, the Yankees slugger still had one pesky storyline following him into his seventh career postseason, and through the first two games of the American League Division Series, he hasn’t done much to squash the narrative that he can’t deliver in October. 

Judge faced a familiar backdrop for his first at-bat of the evening Monday: 48,034 fans on their feet and screaming their heads off as he stepped into the box. That’s what he was used to this season as he tallied the most home runs (58), RBIs (144) and walks (133) in the major leagues. Game 2’s scene of thousands wearing his No. 99 pinstriped home jersey in the Bronx was similar to when he recorded the top OPS (1.159) in baseball for the second time in his career this year. Even the situation he walked up to was recognizable and typically favorable: runners on first and second with nobody out. 

The one difference? It’s the playoffs.

After two competitive at-bats from Gleyber Torres and Juan Soto, each hitter drawing 6-pitch walks against Royals ace Cole Ragans, Judge struck out on four pitches and took all the juice out of the building with him. It also gave Judge the worst strikeout rate (34.3%) in MLB postseason history among hitters with at least 200 plate appearances.

Judge would draw a walk and reach on an infield single to finish the night 1-for-3. He’s 1-for-7 to start this postseason. When asked after the Yankees’ 4-2 loss to the Royals on Monday how he’s been feeling at the plate, Judge delivered a line you might have heard from him before.

“If I’m not hitting 1.000, I’m not feeling good,” he said. 

Judge added that he isn’t frustrated with his results, and he doesn’t believe the Yankees’ bye week messed up his timing at the plate, particularly because he made sure to see live pitching every day while the Bronx Bombers waited for Game 1 of the ALDS. 

“I think you can go back in the season and find two games out of the 162 that I go for 1-for-6, or 1-for-7 or whatever,” Judge said.

But his results so far in two games of the ALDS have delivered a reminder that this isn’t May, when Judge hit 14 home runs in 28 games. This isn’t June, when he raised his batting average to .409 and his on-base percentage to .514 across 25 incredible games. This isn’t August, when he walked 25 times in 26 games while recording a 1.386 OPS. This is October, where his career slash line is .208/.311/.449 across 46 games.

With at least two games left in the Yankees’ season, Judge has at least a handful of at-bats this week to swing out of this broad postseason slump. Perhaps, he can take solace from the fact that he is hardly the only great hitter to struggle in the playoffs. Far from it. 

Barry Bonds batted .196 with a .618 OPS, struck out 20 times, and recorded just one home run through his first 27 career playoff games from 1990 to 2000. (He finally broke out in 2002 with a 1.559 OPS while slugging eight home runs in 17 games.) Hall of Famer Willie Mays hit just one home run and posted a .668 OPS in his playoff career — though teams would only play one round in the postseason during his 25 postseason games that stretched across two decades. Currently, Mookie Betts is hitless in his past 22 playoff at-bats. Bobby Witt Jr., the presumptive AL MVP runner-up to Judge, is 0-for-10 with four strikeouts in this ALDS against the Yankees.

“You can never count him out,” Soto said of Judge. “He’s the greatest hitter of all time right now. He’s just doing his thing. He struggled a little bit with the fastball today. But I know he’s going to bounce back.”

If the rest of his career is any indication, he eventually will.

Upon making his MLB debut in 2016, Judge posted a staggering 44% strikeout rate over 27 games. Following an offseason swing adjustment, Judge swatted a record 52 home runs and won the AL Rookie of the Year award. This April, he had an abysmal start to the season, batting .178 with a .674 OPS and four home runs through his first 27 games. Five months later, he’s a lock to win his second AL MVP award. But even in September, after struggling for the first three weeks and leaving the door open for Shohei Ohtani to win the home run title, Judge responded with homers in five consecutive games while finishing with the highest OPS+ (223) for a right-handed hitter in MLB history.

Judge likes to say that line about hitting 1.000 because it’s impossible to achieve that number throughout a season or a postseason, and to give us an idea of the goal — and the pressure — he has set for himself. He will never stop making adjustments in the ongoing effort to improve his game. And it’s not like it’s the pressure or the elite pitching of October that is getting to the slugger. Judge has played through the pressure of breaking Roger Maris’ American League single-season home run record when he crushed 62 in 2022. He has overcome the difficulty of playing in New York, going through a highly-publicized free agency, and following up a $360 million contract by becoming the captain of the Yankees and continuing to be the same, great hitter at the plate.

“That’s the fun thing about the playoffs, is that you’re facing the best every day,” Jazz Chisholm said. “And Judge is definitely one of the best. I think he enjoys facing all these guys. I feel like it helps him to mentally get into it, because he’s a competitor. We’re all competitors, but he’s the elite competitor. That’s why he does what he does.” 

So, chalk up his postseason struggles as another part of his game that he is still improving; a narrative that he could soon flip on its head in dramatic fashion. New York heads to Kansas City with this best-of-five ALDS tied at one game apiece. There’s still time for Judge to rewrite his October story. The Yankees’ World Series hopes might depend on it. 

Deesha Thosar is an MLB reporter for FOX Sports. She previously covered the Mets as a beat reporter for the New York Daily News. The daughter of Indian immigrants, Deesha grew up on Long Island and now lives in Queens. Follow her on Twitter at @DeeshaThosar.

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PHILADELPHIA — Iconic performances in this city typically involve two things: a healthy dose of jeering from the fan base, followed by sweet redemption in the form of a meaningful win. Who doesn’t love a comeback story?

But there are layers to these things. What Nick Castellanos accomplished Sunday night against the Mets — crushing a game-tying home run in the sixth inning and a walk-off single in the ninth to seal a 7-6 Phillies win — cannot be properly understood from looking at his 3-for-5 in the box score. To understand Castellanos is to dig deeper than how he carries himself on the surface.

“He doesn’t let anything bother him, really,” manager Rob Thomson said of Castellanos. “If he’s struggling, it doesn’t really bother him, he just keeps working. He’s an experienced guy. He knows he’s going to come out of it at some point. He just keeps fighting.”

Halfway through Game 2 of the National League Division Series, the situation was getting desperate for the Phillies and their embattled right fielder. 

Castellanos opened his fourth-inning at-bat against Luis Severino having logged just two hits in his past 10 at-bats, dating back to the final days of the regular season. The Phillies dropped Game 1 to the Mets in part because the offense had struggled to hit. Trea Turner, Bryce Harper, J.T. Realmuto, Alec Bohm, Bryson Stott and Castellanos combined to go 2-for-20 to kick off the 2024 playoffs. The Phillies had to win Sunday and split the series to avoid going into Citi Field with their backs against the wall. 

In the fourth inning, with the Phillies trailing 2-0, the home crowd was edgy and fed up — getting on its players early and often — by the time Castellanos dug into the box for his second at-bat of the night.

When he fell behind 0-2 against Severino by swinging hopelessly at consecutive balls in the dirt, anxious Philly fans expressed their displeasure by emphatically booing him. OK, par for the course. On the very next pitch, Castellanos refrained from swinging at a sweeper in the same extremely low and outside location. Then the fans cheered, sarcastically thanking Castellanos for listening. Huh, that’s different. Castellanos appeared to mutter a few words under his breath. Clearly, the noise had bothered him. One pitch later, he swung again at a low sweeper and grounded out.

“Nick’s a resilient person,” J.T. Realmuto said. “He’s dealt with a lot of ups and down here in Philly, and he always seems to come out on top in the end.”

The Mets added on in the top of the sixth inning after Pete Alonso homered off Jose Ruiz. Things were getting dire. The Phillie Phanatic didn’t even dare to show his face to the exasperated crowd. Finally, the nerves lifted when Harper took a 99 mph Severino fastball and swatted it to the batter’s eye for a two-run home run. Harper touched home plate, raised his arms and roared, imploring the crowd to get up and bring good energy. Up next, Castellanos responded by lifting a no-doubt game-tying home run to left-center. He was fired up, but he wasn’t even close to finished. 

“I was just kind of frustrated,” Castellanos admitted. “So, I guess I locked in more.”

In the eighth, he lined a single to right field off Edwin Diaz to set up the two-run triple from Stott that gave the Phillies their first lead. But these Mets don’t go down easily, so every Phillies run mattered by the time Mark Vientos tied the game with a two-run shot to left in the ninth inning. 

With two outs in the ninth, it was all set up for Castellanos to be the hero — or the villain — after Turner and Harper drew back-to-back walks. Castellanos collected his fifth walk-off of the year when he came through in the clutch again, lining the game-winning single to left and getting mobbed by his teammates on the field. See, we knew you could do it, the exuberant Philly crowd that was jumping and roaring, seemed to say. 

Afterward, his teammates echoed one another, asserting Castellanos is the same player, and carries the same emotions, in both the good times and the bad.

“Nick doesn’t get bothered by a lot,” Schwarber said. “I don’t know if he took it personally, but he came up big for us. You see the way that he plays the game, where results don’t really bother him. He stays in the game. He stays in the moment. He stays in that at-bat.”

But, that doesn’t really line up with what we saw from Castellanos when he muttered under his breath and later admitted he was frustrated. He was clearly miffed by the sarcastic cheers, so what did Schwarber, his teammates, and his manager mean by nothing really bothers him?

“You’re not looking at the physical outside of him, and you see him rattled,” Schwarber told FOX Sports. “I think that’s the biggest thing. Everyone has emotions and everyone has feelings. He does a good job of making sure that no one sees that. That’s the part about baseball, where you can be feeling great, you can be feeling bad, you can be banged up, and you don’t ever let anyone know. That’s the biggest thing.

“Nick didn’t let the pitcher know. He didn’t let anyone know. Keep that in, and it could be motivation, right? It could be. He kept it in, and like he said, it locked him in.”

This is a topic that has gotten under Castellanos’ skin before, though. 

In July 2022, his first season with the Phillies, Castellanos entered the second half with an 85 OPS+, to go with suboptimal defense in right field. The home crowd booed him as the struggles continued; one day after going 0-for-4 with a strikeout against the Cubs, a reporter asked Castellanos if he had heard the boos. Castellanos retorted, “Nah, man. I lost my hearing. That’s a stupid question.” The exchange got a little combative before the Phillies closed the clubhouse to the media.

The Phillies had signed Castellanos before that season, days after injecting Schwarber to the mix, in part because they wanted to try and slug their way to the postseason. They believed he would help carry that vision so much that Dave Dombrowski pushed a five-year, $100 million offer across the table that Castellanos accepted. He has since struggled in three regular seasons with Philadelphia, putting up an 105 OPS+ in that span. But he has come through in the playoffs, with clutch performances against the Braves and Padres in the 2022 NLDS and NLCS, respectively, on the way to the Phillies’ World Series run, as well as hitting five home runs over three games during last year’s postseason.

Those up and down moments with Castellanos are a significant reason Phillies fans have formed a love-hate connection with the slugger — and why his teammates who have been on this three-year journey with him vouch for his work ethic and fight along the way.

Game 2 was a microcosm of the Castellanos experience, which explains the outpouring of emotion — from the fans, the team and Castellanos himself. The sequence also demonstrated growth for the 32-year-old, as he adjusted his public response when pressed about the booing. In his latest interview about the Bronx cheers, Castellanos was short and to the point, lifting the curtain ever so slightly to reveal that his frustrations allowed him to have success later in the game.

Schwarber agreed that Castellanos’ ability to conceal his inner frustrations from the crowd, often even from his own teammates, could allow fans to get on him more, to continue piling on the boos and create that love-hate relationship. Sports fans want to see emotions and get reactions — both the triumphant and the defeated ones. But Castellanos seems to understand that he doesn’t need to break his bat over his knee and show his frustrations to prove something. He lets his production do the talking. 

The moment he didn’t hold back from letting his inner joy pour out came after his game-tying home run off Severino. He rounded the bases, and immediately jogged over to the seats behind home plate, where his son Liam was standing up and grabbing the netting that separated them. Castellanos smiled wide, the happiness lighting up his eyes, and reached through the netting to pound his son’s chest. 

“Let’s go!” they both screamed.

“All fans see is Nick Castellanos, or Kyle Schwarber, or Bryce Harper, or J.T., whoever it is, all they see is that player walking up to the plate. And it’s this idea of them,” Schwarber said. “But they’re human. It doesn’t matter if you’re hot or you’re cold, there’s always a thought in the back of the mind that he can do damage. So, I think that’s why, if you’re able to stay like that, unbothered on the outside, that’s a positive thing.”

Castellanos’ ability to slow the game down, stay outwardly unbothered in tough moments, and perhaps use it as motivation to eventually have success, and allow his overjoyed emotions to come out, is as much a part of his game as his iconic moments in Philly. In the past, Castellanos’ reaction to the crowd’s love-hate relationship, and even overcoming it, wouldn’t happen like the flip of a switch, the way it did in the Phillies’ walk-off win Sunday night. He made the in-game adjustment to use the booing as motivation, and this time, it worked. 

It’s the stuff of comebacks, and who doesn’t love that?

Deesha Thosar is an MLB reporter for FOX Sports. She previously covered the Mets as a beat reporter for the New York Daily News. The daughter of Indian immigrants, Deesha grew up on Long Island and now lives in Queens. Follow her on Twitter at @DeeshaThosar.

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PHILADELPHIA — Zack Wheeler gave the Phillies everything they asked for. 

After 111 pitches and seven shutout innings behind him, Wheeler was hardly breaking a sweat on the mound. After two hours of pitching, he looked like he would have no problem if he was asked to keep going. Really, letting Wheeler pitch until he was actually being threatened would’ve been the Phillies‘ best chance at winning the opener of the National League Division Series. 

Because the moment Wheeler came out, the Mets pounced on the Phillies and comfortably took Game 1, 6-2, at Citizens Bank Park.

“Wheeler is nasty,” Mets designated hitter J.D. Martinez said. “He’s one of the best pitchers in the league, and you could see it. Especially in the shadows early on, it’s like, dude, this guy is throwing airplanes up there. The ball’s taking off every which way. It’s like, good luck. 

“You just gotta take him out of the game. You gotta find a way to get him out because the way he was throwing the ball today, it was just unhittable.”

But allowing Wheeler to pitch beyond the 110-pitch threshold was already a tenuous situation. Sure, manager Rob Thomson could’ve given him the eighth so that the Phillies had the chance to steal one or two more outs from their ace. But the most pitches he has thrown in a start this season (115) came in an outing against the Marlins in June. On Saturday, in his 33rd start of the year, after Wheeler had already dominated and walked off the mound with a one-run lead, having him come back out for another inning might have been asking for too much. 

In hindsight, perhaps they should’ve asked him anyway. 

After Wheeler struck out nine, walked four and allowed just one hit across seven shutout innings, the Mets immediately rallied for their third playoff win in five days (and fourth dramatic road win in six days if you count their comeback versus Atlanta this past Monday to clinch a playoff berth). Saturday’s late-game ambush featured one productive at-bat after another, as six of the first eight batters singled or walked against three different Phillies relievers in the eighth inning. The two that didn’t reach base hit sacrifice flies, as New York pushed five runs across the board.

It sealed another improbable postseason victory for the Mets, who overcame a hostile Philly environment and a bullpen game that started off with Kodai Senga giving up a home run to his first batter, Kyle Schwarber. 

That the Phillies only scraped together two hits while Wheeler was on the mound, pitching a postseason gem that only added to his reputation as one of the best pitchers in baseball, was a waste. The Phillies were well-rested after winning the division and earning a bye week. They had the home-field advantage behind a sold-out crowd of 45,751. They had their ace throwing fastballs at 99 mph, four ticks higher than his season average, and getting redemption against his former team, which let him walk away in free agency. 

Saturday was all lined up for the Phillies to finish the job. Instead, the Mets have backed them into somewhat of a corner. The Phillies must win Game 2 at the Bank before the series turns over to yet another contentious environment at Citi Field, where the Mets will gain another edge, another upper hand, that they haven’t even needed to reach this point.

“I do believe in momentum,” Mets outfielder Brandon Nimmo said. “And I believe that, you know, we have confidence right now. We have recent examples of coming back. I believe in the hard work that we’ve done and I believe in the preparation that these guys do each and every day.

“But momentum is a big thing. And having confidence is a big thing. And the guys are showing a lot of that right now.”

The Mets are surely feeling confident after stealing a win in a game started by Wheeler, who has established himself over the past three years as the best big-game pitcher in baseball. His Game 1 performance lowered his career postseason ERA to 2.18 across 12 appearances, which is the type of production that puts him in the conversation with the game’s best postseason starters in recent memory. 

There are only so many starting pitchers that, in a playoff game when stakes are the highest they will ever be, the manager can trust with a strong sense of certainty that, not only will Wheeler pitch deep into his outing, not only will he save the arms in the bullpen, but he won’t spiral, either. Wheeler is excellent at avoiding the horrible meltdown inning — the exact situations that allow opposing teams to rally and put up a crooked number in the postseason. 

But Wheeler, typically emotionless, stone-faced, and a cool customer, is a workhorse who has mastered the art of making adjustments, even as he gets older. In his age-34 season, while speed can tend to be valued over stuff, Wheeler still dominates while throwing a fastball that is ranked in the 67th percentile among his peers. 

Wheeler finished the 2024 regular season with a 2.57 ERA (second-best in the NL, after Chris Sale) in 32 starts and 200 innings. It was the sixth time in his 10-year career he pitched at least 180 innings. Asked if this season was his best shot at a Cy Young, Wheeler pondered.

“I guess I could’ve said that about 2021, too, because that was my best season,” he told FOX Sports in September. “I was like, man, that was a really good season. That was cool. Maybe that was my best shot at getting it the Cy, and then I had a better year this year. I don’t know. Maybe I can do it again. It’s hard to do, but maybe.”

Though he has yet to win one, Wheeler has been a perennial Cy Young contender since joining the Phillies in 2020. And nights like Saturday are a big reason why the Phillies have been title contenders three years in a row now.

“Nationally, you’d love him to have it [the Cy Young award]. But from our own perspective, from the city of Philadelphia and the team, he’s regarded that way,” Phillies president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski recently told FOX Sports. “He’s also pitched in the biggest spotlight, and he has shined. 

“So for him, it’s a situation where he has really established himself as one of the best pitchers, and one of the best big-time pitchers in the game. They’re two different things.” 

Wheeler likely won’t get into the Hall of Fame because of how much injury sidelined him for the first half of his career. But he sure is pitching like he belongs in Cooperstown. Leading Philly to a World Series title would be a lovely consolation. 

The Phillies, now 6-6 in Wheeler’s postseason outings, just have to stop wasting his precious gems.

Deesha Thosar is an MLB reporter for FOX Sports. She previously covered the Mets as a beat reporter for the New York Daily News. The daughter of Indian immigrants, Deesha grew up on Long Island and now lives in Queens. Follow her on Twitter at @DeeshaThosar.

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Link to Original Article - on Fox Sports