The Boys in the Boat

BY KEVIN KERNAN

The best team won.

And now, for a change, the Mets are not just The Other Team in New York.

The Yankees are playing catchup because the Mets locked up a trip to the NLCS and will play for the National League pennant after beating the inept Phillies 4-1 Wednesday night at Citi Field, winning the NLDS in four games. They will face either the Padres or Dodgers.

The Yankees are doing their New York pride part in trying to win the AL Central in order to get to the World Series and clipped the Royals, 3-2, Wednesday night on the strength of a Giancarlo Stanton eighth-inning home run. Royals’ lefty reliever Kris Bubic tried to spin a third straight breaking ball past Stanton. You know, it is all about the trickery. Stanton made Bubic pay, and the Yankees lead the ALDS, 2-1.

Win one more and then it is on to face the AL Central Surprise Tigers or the Guardians. The Tigers lead that ALDS, 2-1. The Guardians have been shutout two straight games. One more loss and the Curse of the Guardians continues; Cleveland has not won a World Series since 1948.

This marked the first time the Mets clinched a playoff series at Citi Field, which opened in 2009. And as manager Carlos Mendoza noted in the celebration in the Mets clubhouse, a clubhouse that I’ve been in so many times when the Mets failed in so many different ways, “This win was for Mets Nation.’’

This win was made possible by Francisco Lindor’s sixth-inning grand slam as Lindor has come such a long, long way from his Statue Strikeout at the end of May. It was that embarrassing moment, I believe, that helped turn around Lindor and the Mets season.

Winning the World Series is what the Mets want, but winning the World Series against the Yankees is what the Mets, their fans, and their owner Steve Cohen dream about.

After that game, Lindor took on much more of a hit to all fields approach and his teammates followed along. Lindor, the $341 million player, is a five-tool star and he got back to using all five tools that he was blessed with – and that has made all the difference for the Mets. Mendoza moving Lindor to leadoff was the perfect move, too.

“This is what I came here for, to play winning baseball,’’ Lindor said in his on-field interview with Tom Verducci. “We just have to keep climbing.’’

The next rung on the ladder is the NLCS.

It has been a long difficult climb for the Mets franchise since the Mets came to life in 1962 and lost a record 120 games, but even that changed this year; the 1962 Mets don’t have that record of incompetence anymore. The White Sox lost 121 games this season. They are the worst.

The White Sox lost, 4-1 to the Tigers for their 121st loss, the same score of the Mets’ victory Wednesday night over the (Bryce) Harper Valley PTA Phillies.

With that win, things changed a bit.

The Mets are not second fiddle at the moment, and this could wind up being a special New York October where the Mets and Yankees face each other in the World Series as they did in 2000, when the Yankees swamped the Mets in five games on their way to their third straight World Series championship.

Winning the World Series is what the Mets want, but winning the World Series against the Yankees is what the Mets, their fans, and their owner Steve Cohen dream about.

After the Mets win Wednesday night, the longest tenured Met Brandon Nimmo, perhaps the nicest ballplayer to ever walk the earth, talked about Cohen having had dinner with individual Mets players after buying the team and asking them what it was going to take so the Mets were no longer “the other team in New York.’’

This is what it takes. Winning baseball.

Imagine being second fiddle in New York all these years. That is what life has been for Mets fans since 1986, the last time the Mets won the World Series. The Mets have only won two World Series, in 1969 the Miracle Mets were victorious.

Except for those two years, it’s been second-class citizenship for Mets fans in the City That Never Sleeps. The 27-times World Champion Yankees own the city.

That is the challenge the Mets are facing.

Along the way here this year there has been all this goofy talk about the reason for this Mets run, you know there’s the Grimace thing and the Playoff Pumpkin and other things I am not going to mention, but the other day when Lindor was asked about the Mets incredible run of success and this Amazin’ turnaround, it was suggested it may have been some gimmick for the success, he offered the perfect one-word answer.

“Baseball,’’ Lindor said. Baseball was the reason for all the success.

I loved that. And here at BallNine we always preach “Baseball.’’

Play the game right and you will have success.

The Mets are simply playing baseball all this time.

On offense they are passing the baton, they are getting contributions from everyone in their deep lineup, something a lot of teams don’t have these days where it is all on the Big Man. Just look at the Phillies and Bryce Harper.

The Mets are getting excellent starting pitching, too, and Sean Manaea proved that again in their Game 3, 7-2 victory over the Phading, not Phitin’  Phillies. The relievers do their job as well, sometimes walking a tightrope. Edwin Diaz struck out Kyle Schwarber, representing the tying run in the ninth on Wednesday night to end the game and then Diaz stood on the mound in a frozen scream Superman of a pose. He was not jumping around like when he was injured in the WBC; Diaz’ feet were firmly planted on the mound.

It is always good for players to have a firm grip on reality and their feet firmly planted on the ground. It needs to be said too that these are the “OMG’’ Mets, something I noted in June at BallNine when I knew the Mets were making a comeback in the 2024 race. OMG stands for Jose Iglesias’ song that offers gratitude to God to be able to play this wonderful game of baseball.

And that is such a good thing.

That has inspired the Mets. It has made them likable. That has helped carry the Mets as well as the Lindor ninth-inning home run in Atlanta, the Pete Alonso opposite field ninth-inning home run in Milwaukee and the Lindor sixth-inning grand slam Wednesday night when the Mets offense had so many chances to come through and finally did.

OMG indeed.

The Mets carry the OMG sign with them throughout the season and the playoffs and when good things happen, the players pose for a photo in the dugout and not just the player who hit the home run, but teammates as well. The Mets are all-in across the board. The starting pitchers root each other on in the dugout, they even paint their faces for their pitching brethren. The Mets have found the magic because they have done something special in baseball, they made the game about baseball and about the team. They root each other on, anyone can be the hero, youngsters like Mark Vientos or veterans. They are carrying the load; everyone does their job and provides good vibes even if they are not on the field.

This is the way the game was meant to be played. The Mets have room for quiet guys and boisterous players like Jesse Winker. They all pull on the same rope. They are baseball’s version of the Boys in the Boat, all eight members rowing in sync. When the rowers are in sync, the boat moves fluidly and gracefully through the water.

The same goes for baseball. Row together to victory.

“There is something about that group and what they do together,’’ a top talent evaluator told BallNine on Wednesday before the Mets finished off the Phillies. “The Phillies have been faltering for a while, they have not played well since the All-Star break, and the Mets kept getting stronger. They became a force to be reckoned with, that is for sure.’’

The Mets also got the biggest gift of the NLDS when the Phillies for some reason, elected to pull ace and former Met Zack Wheeler out of Game 1 after seven shutout innings with a 1-0 lead at Citizens Bank Park. The Mets had just come off their Thursday Pete Alonso home run win over the Brewers in Milwaukee and were a road-weary team.

Wheeler was dealing.

This is where understanding baseball comes into the picture. Let Wheeler finish the job. But the over-thinking teams cannot let that happen. They stop baseball from being baseball. A bullpen that was rusty, because the Phillies sat out the Wild Card Round, gave the game away and the Mets scored five in the eighth inning. The Mets were practically jumping for joy when Wheeler came out of the game with 111 pitches.

Given an inch, the Mets took a foot, that is what good baseball teams do and even though the Phillies snuck away with a Game 2 victory, the Mets were in control of this series going home to New York, finally. The Phillies bats never came to life.

Kyle Schwarber hit .125 for the series, a leadoff disaster. Trea Turner hit .200. Harper held up his end with a .333 batting average and Nick Castellanos was terrific at .412, but then the Phillies batting order fell off the cliff. Alec Bohm batted .077. J.T. Realmuto did not get a hit the entire series, that is .000. I don’t know what his xBA was, go ask a Nerd. Bryson Stott hit .182, Brandon Marsh was at .077 and Weston Wilson put up another .000.

As much as the Nerds preach that batting average doesn’t matter, and much of the media falls along, batting average always matters, especially in October.

October is also the time when baseball matters most, and the Mets are playing great baseball. The second city team in New York is on the rise.

The Boys in the Boat are all rowing together.