Syndergaard turns up the heat, and the Mets climb back into Series, 9-3
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Version 0 of 1. NEW YORK — The World Series arrived here Friday to die, it would seem. The Kansas City Royals took two games in the heartland, the last so convincingly the New York Mets could have been congratulated on a nice run, thanks. See you in Port St. Lucie around Valentine’s Day. Death, though, can be staved off in baseball. Fates aren’t predetermined. Just when the Mets couldn’t hit, they could. Just when the Royals were impervious to numbskulled mistakes, they buckled to them. So ease off on the mouth-to-mouth. By virtue of a 9-3 Game 3 thumping that featured the kind of Mets offense that defined the second half of the season — 12 hits from nine different players — the World Series has life. New York received two-run home runs from David Wright, who drove in four runs, and Curtis Granderson; got a shaky-to-start-but-strong-to-finish effort from rookie right-hander Noah Syndergaard; ripped through seven Royals pitchers; and pulled back to trail the series just two games to one. [Thomas Boswell: Series in need of some home-field improvement] “There’s some pretty good conversations going on this afternoon in the clubhouse with some guys,” Manager Terry Collins said, “to where [guys were saying], ‘This is when we rise up, and we’ve got our backs to the wall.’ ” Pick a cliche, whichever you prefer. The Mets’ offense is back, and at Citi Field, that’s all that mattered. At the trade deadline, when they acquired outfielder Yoenis Cespedes, they ranked last in the National League in runs scored. But with Cespedes — and key reserves Kelly Johnson and Juan Uribe — they became less jesters, more juggernaut. Since the all-star break, no National League team scored more runs, hit more homers, posted a higher slugging percentage or a higher on-base-plus slugging percentage. That’s the group that reappeared Friday. “Our lineup works so well from top to bottom that these games are inevitable when we kind of get things going,” said reliever Tyler Clippard, who combined with Syndergaard, Addison Reed and Jeurys Familia to limit the Royals to one hit after the second. “. . . We’ve done this a lot in the last 2 1/2 months, and it doesn’t surprise me at all.” With the wind sweeping across Citi Field, stiffening the flags and chilling a crowd of 44,781, the revival of the Mets’ offense — which managed just two singles in Johnny Cueto’s mesmerizing complete game Wednesday night and had just one extra-base hit in the first two games — might not have seemed the obvious theme. Rookie Michael Conforto was hitless in his previous 19 at-bats and had one postseason hit. Wright (.171) and catcher Travis d’Arnaud (.186) had struggled all postseason. Cespedes was 6 for his last 32. Yet here came that same Mets lineup again. “If you show panic now, it could spread in the clubhouse, and I’m not going to do that,” Collins said before the game. “I like our lineup. I like what they’ve done all year long. You go through ups and downs, but as we’ve seen, when they break out, they’re good.” And from the first pitch, Syndergaard helped the Mets set a tone. When he arrived at the clubhouse Friday afternoon, he knew Royals leadoff hitter Alcides Escobar feasted on first-pitch fastballs. He asked d’Arnaud, his catcher, how he felt about going high and tight to start the game, then following with a curveball. So when Escobar dug in, here came 97 mph — right at Escobar’s eye level. Escobar sprawled to the ground, legs splayed comically. “I feel like it really made a statement to start the game off,” Syndergaard said, “because guys can’t dig in.” The Royals were livid. Mike Moustakas screamed at him from the dugout. Told afterward that Kansas City players felt his tactics were, um, inappropriate, Syndergaard was downright dismissive. “If they have a problem with me throwing inside,” Syndergaard said, “they can meet me 60 feet 6 inches away. . . . My intent on that pitch was to make them uncomfortable, and I feel like it did just that.” Life? A series that Friday afternoon needed a defibrillator now has bad blood. The Royals scored a run anyway off Syndergaard in the first. But in the bottom of the inning, Granderson led off with a single to second, and up came Wright. Royals starter Yordano Ventura offered him an 0-1 fastball, and Wright hit it well enough to left — into what appeared to be the teeth of the wind but below it — that he could afford to admire it. “We were relentless tonight,” Wright said. “It seemed like every time they had an answer, we had an answer right back. I think that’s the kind of baseball that got us here.” Granderson’s own two-run shot off Ventura came in the third and turned a 3-2 deficit into a 4-3 lead. Then, perhaps the most surprising element of this pivotal game: The Royals unraveled, the kind of self-inflicted wounds Kansas City has avoided for two straight postseasons. The first came in the fourth, with two on and Conforto at the plate. Carrying what was now an 0-for-20 skid into the at-bat, he bounced a ball to first, where Gold Glover Eric Hosmer gobbled it up. But when Hosmer went to flip to first, Ventura wasn’t covering. “Kind of my instinct was to watch the ball right there and kind of just look at ‘Hos’ and see if he was gonna go home or something,” Ventura said through an interpreter, “and just got caught watching the play.” The run that scored on the play made it 5-3. That we’ve-been-doing-this-since-spring-training moment gave the Mets a smidge of breathing room. The next gaffe, though, helped seal things. Veteran pinch hitter Uribe, who hadn’t played in a game since Sept. 25 because of a chest injury, drove in a run in the sixth with a single, and with one out, Granderson came up with runners at first and third. He tapped a ball back to lefty reliever Franklin Morales. Ball in hand, Morales looked at about every base imaginable — and perhaps some mirages, too. “He was going to second,” Royals Manager Ned Yost said. “Stopped, turned — and then it was a mess from there.” In the end, he decided to throw to second. He missed. Badly. Wright followed with a two-run single. The Mets scored four in the inning. Ballgame. And a series, which seemed ready to slip away from Citi Field and Queens and all of New York — fading into winter before it truly began — not only had new life but some venom, too. |