Tempting Fate: The Mets avoid elimination while the Dodgers play the long game

NEW YORK – Less than 20 minutes before what could be the final game of the year at Citi Field, the OMG Mets introduced another good-vibe gimmick. Actually five.

The Temptations, the legendary Motown band, took the field behind home plate in their signature suits and sang the national anthem. Moments later, the quintet slipped into Mets jerseys and performed “My Girl,” their classic hit here whenever Francisco Lindor takes the stage. If the Mets were eliminated in Game 5 of the National League Championship Series, they would at least go down singing.

It turned out that the Temptations were just the opening act for a three-hour rock revival. When it was over, the Mets had defeated the Dodgers 12-6, ensuring that their remarkable run would last at least one more game.

“We played with our backs against the wall all year and were able to rise to the challenge,” said left fielder Brandon Nimmo. “Some might say we are at our best at this point. If anyone can do it, we can do it.”

By “do it,” Nimmo means winning Games 6 and 7 at Dodger Stadium to erase a 3-1 series deficit and advance to the World Series. It won't be easy, but it's also not hard to imagine a world in which the Mets can do it.

At first it looked like they wouldn't get a chance to try. Shohei Ohtani, who led off the play against left winger David Peterson, narrowly passed Jeff McNeil, who was making his first postseason start, in the middle. Mookie Betts then placed a sinker into the right-center field gap, where he was bowled over by a sliding Starling Marte. However, the ball bounced off the top of the fabric of his glove and landed for a double. Second and third: Nobody gets out.

The next batter, Teoscar Hernández, attacked the first pitch he saw and sank a grounder to Lindor, who hit it backhanded and scored to first. His throw was high and toward the home plate side of the base. As Hernández charged toward him, Pete Alonso shuffled over the ball, extended his left leg into the foul zone with his right foot touching the base, and reached for the ball. The grounder was hit too hard to hit Ohtani from third , so he stayed put. Instead of a throwing error by one of the game's best defenders scoring the run, the game ended with a routine 6-3 putout. From there, the Mets got used to it. Peterson got Freddie Freeman to move softly to first and struck out Tommy Edman to escape the two-on-no-out jam without allowing a run.

The Mets jumped on Jack Flaherty just as quickly as the Dodgers jumped on Peterson. Lindor belted a single to right and Nimmo walked. Third baseman Mark Vientos first hit a deep fly to left field to bring in Alonso, who was 2-for-15 in the NLCS after sweeping the first two rounds of the postseason.

Alonso is a free agent after the season, and if this is his final home game with the Mets, it would certainly be a fitting exit for him.

He took a first-pitch slider from Flaherty for strike one and then spit one into the dirt to even the count. Flaherty then missed with a fastball before returning to the slider. His 2-1 advance never got out of hand and broke well below the zone. Doesn't matter. Alonso unloaded on the pitch, sending it 432 feet just right of dead center field for a three-run home run. Or, as Jesse Winker recalled, “Pete hit a ball from the ground into the apple, that was pretty sick.”

You know, it was pretty sick. This is not what you would call a hittable pitch. Alonso called it “the magic of the postseason.” But it was also the sign of a great batsman who prepared for his opponent and knew how to beat him. Alonso said he was looking for something above the middle of the plate and only realized how low it was after he placed it on the centerfield seats.

“Pete is a really good hitter,” Winker said. “Pete is a smart hitter. Pete has well over 200 home runs. Pete knows what he's doing. Pete knows how to strike, and Pete knows how to strike for strength. I feel like Pete had an idea of ​​how he was going to be attacked, especially when people were on base, and Pete capitalized on that. Pete has been doing this for a very long time and for good reason.”

The Dodgers answered with a run in the second when Enrique Hernández led off the inning with a walk, advanced to third on Andy Pages' two-out single and scored on a wild pitch. But Peterson avoided further trouble by getting Betts to come out first with Ohtani.

It was clear from the start that Flaherty didn't have the same skills as he did when he dominated the Mets over seven scoreless innings in Game 1. Pretty much everything the Mets brought into the game was hit hard. After the game, Dave Roberts said Flaherty was “a little under the weather.”

Still, Roberts abandoned the urgency with which he had managed this postseason and allowed Flaherty to return to the mound for the third inning. He walked the first two batters he faced, Alonso and Winker, and then Marte hit a double into the left field corner to score two more runs. Still, Roberts stuck with Flaherty. The score was 5-1 at the time, and with a bullpen game coming up on Sunday, Roberts didn't want to use his high-leverage relievers so early in a four-run game. By continuing to play this weaker, sicker version of Flaherty for a while longer, Roberts essentially conceded the game and hoped to put his team in the best possible position to win one of the remaining two games in Los Angeles.

The problem with this strategy is that the Mets weren't in a good spot with their pitching either. Peterson didn't hit particularly well, and the Dodgers' offense is certainly good enough to penetrate the underbelly of New York's bullpen. A four-run deficit in the third inning shouldn't have been too much for Los Angeles to overcome. However, it didn't stay a four-run game for long as Flaherty was still on the mound.

Francisco Alvarez drove Marte home with a two-out single to lead off Lindor, who dropped his bat head and hammered a low-and-inner knuckle curve into the right field corner. Betts misplayed the carom and tried to push the ball off the wall with his bare hand and get it back into the infield quicker. Instead, he failed, and by the time he recovered, Alvarez had scored first and Lindor was at third for what a generous official scorer called a three-pointer. Lindor scored the fifth run of the inning on a Nimmo single before Vientos mercifully got the third out.

Peterson hit a wall with two outs in the fourth. At first he allowed Pages to record solo. Then Ohtani hit a single and Betts and Teoscar Hernández walked to load the bases. Mets coach Carlos Mendoza brought Reed Garrett on to face Freeman, who played it all out before hitting a backdoor sweeper off the outside corner to get out of trouble.

Brent Honeywell relieved Flaherty to start the fourth inning and hit Alonso with his second pitch. Winker then fired a groundball past a flying Freeman that went to the wall for an RBI triple. McNeil drove in Winker with a sac fly, extending the Mets' lead to 10-2.

However, the Dodgers didn't get ahead of themselves. With two ons and two outs in the fifth, Pages hit his second home run in as many innings, making the game 10-5. Betts hit a home run to lead off the sixth, cutting New York's lead to four. The Mets tacked on two more runs against Honeywell, who finally got relief with two outs in the eighth. His overall record — 4 2/3 innings, six hits, four runs — was less than impressive, but his primary job wasn't to prevent runs but rather to give the Dodgers length so Roberts could rest the rest of his bullpen.

“I wish I could predict Andy would hit two home runs tonight,” Roberts said. “It's not always fun when you go through it, especially not from any chair, especially not mine. But you have to be steadfast in the use of your pitchers because ultimately it’s about winning four games in a seven-game series.”

Of course, we don't know how it would have turned out if Roberts hadn't stumbled in the third round. Maybe the Mets were so set that they always scored no matter who was throwing; After all, they didn't score in any of their 44 plate appearances. Or maybe they would have pitched differently than Pages and Betts in a closer game. We just have to move on from what actually happened. Roberts kept his best relievers fresh and the Mets were able to avoid elimination for at least one more game.

It's certainly possible that Roberts will be proven right in Game 6, and even if Sunday night's bullpen game goes poorly, none of that will matter if Los Angeles wins Game 7. As things stand, however, the Dodgers have left the window open for the Mets to win the pennant.

Through this window, we can see how the Mets could do it. As in Game 2, they were able to score early against the opener and the bulk guy before Roberts had a chance to call on the high relievers he didn't use on Friday. Should that happen, even if the game gets out of hand, Roberts will have no choice but to use at least one or two of them; Otherwise, the Dodgers won't have enough pitchers to cover the remaining innings. Meanwhile, Sean Manaea could keep the Dodgers lineup in check again.

And if the Mets then force a Game 7, they'll have their second chance to get to Walker Buehler, who is still working on diminished stuff despite his solid start in Game 3. There's no guarantee he'll be as effective against the Mets if they face him a second time.

From there we can imagine everything: The Mets holding up their OMG sign on a playoff pumpkin float in the World Series parade and dancing with Candelita, Pitbull and the Temptations. This can't be a dream because it all seems too real. Or is it just my imagination running away?