{"id":777,"date":"2015-10-16T12:23:46","date_gmt":"2015-10-16T20:23:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chrisbodig.com\/?p=777"},"modified":"2015-10-16T12:23:46","modified_gmt":"2015-10-16T20:23:46","slug":"the-mets-lay-down-murphys-law-to-beat-la","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chrisbodig.com\/?p=777","title":{"rendered":"The Mets Lay Down Murphy&#8217;s Law to Beat LA!!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One year ago the New York Mets and Chicago Cubs lost more games than they won. \u00a0In 2015, starting Saturday night, they will meet for the National League Championship Series to determine which team will represent the league in the World Series.<\/p>\n<p>Thursday night the Mets edged the Los Angeles Dodgers 3-2 with a gritty performance by starter\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/d\/degroja01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\">Jacob deGrom<\/a>\u00a0and a one-man offensive show from 2nd baseman\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/m\/murphda08.shtml\" target=\"_blank\">Daniel Murphy<\/a>. \u00a0Murphy either drove in or scored all three runs for the Mets, featuring a steal of 3rd base while the Dodgers infielders were taking a nap and a go-ahead home run off Dodgers&#8217; starter <a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/g\/greinza01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\">Zack Greinke<\/a>\u00a0in the sixth inning.<\/p>\n<p>Murphy&#8217;s amazing Division Series performance was as unexpected as it was spectacular. \u00a0He is not a power hitter; he hit a career-high 14 home runs in 538 plate appearances during the regular season. \u00a0But in the playoffs, he hit solo home runs in Games 1 and 4 off 3-time Cy Young Award winner\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/k\/kershcl01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\">Clayton Kershaw<\/a>\u00a0and then another off Greinke, who won the award in 2009 with Kansas City and will likely be 2nd in the voting this year.<\/p>\n<p>The other superb performance in Game 5 came from deGrom. \u00a0The Mets&#8217; 2nd-year hurler was dominant in Game 1, striking out 13 in 7 innings. \u00a0In Game 5, he did not have his best stuff. \u00a0deGrom gave up four consecutive hits in the first inning to allow the Dodgers to take a 2-1 lead. \u00a0He was clearly on the ropes but struck out the last two batters to get out of the jam. \u00a0In an outing in which he gave up 6 hits while walking 3, deGrom pitched out of trouble in the first five of the six innings that he completed. The long-haired right-hander &#8220;only&#8221; struck out 7 batters in this outing; 6 of them occurred with runners in scoring position. In fact, 61 of deGrom&#8217;s 105 pitches were thrown in the high-pressure situations of having a runner on 2nd or 3rd base.<\/p>\n<p>Bottom line: deGrom faced off against the pitchers (Kershaw and Greinke) who will almost certainly finish 2nd and 3rd in the National League Cy Young voting this year and he beat them both.<\/p>\n<p>This series win was a great one for a team that started fast in 2015 but started to look like the same old Mets teams that fans have endured for the better part of the last decade. After a brutal rain-delayed 8-7 loss to San Diego in late July in which the New Yorkers blew a 6-run lead, the Mets had a 52-50 record, only alive in the race (3 games behind) because of the ongoing mediocrity of the division leading Washington Nationals. But something Amazin&#8217; happened: the Nationals came to town and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/f\/florewi01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\">Wilmer Flores<\/a>, just days shy of his 24th birthday, hit a game-winning walk-off home run in the bottom of the 12th inning. \u00a0Just two days earlier, the Venezuela native was on the field, in tears because of Twitter rumors that he had been traded from the team that he signed with at the age of 16. It was a script out of a Hollywood movie. Two days after Flores&#8217; dramatic walk-off, the Mets completed a 3-game sweep to tie the Nationals in the standings; it was the last day they would not have sole possession of first place.<\/p>\n<p>Because the Flores trade fell through (indended to Milwaukee in a deal for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/g\/gomezca01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\">Carlos Gomez<\/a>), Mets General Manager Sandy Alderson turned to Plan B and landed\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/c\/cespeyo01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\">Yoenis Cespedes<\/a>\u00a0from Detroit.\u00a0\u00a0The Cuban-born Cespedes carried the team to a big lead with a torrid offensive display: in his first 41 games with New York, Cespedes hit 17 home runs with 42 runs batted in. The Mets won 30 out of those 41 games and essentially wrapped up the division.<\/p>\n<p>Now the Mets take on the Chicago Cubs, into the NLCS for the first time since a crushing 7-game loss to the eventual champion Florida Marlins in 2003. \u00a0The Cubs, who improved by 24 games over 2014 under the stewardship of new manager Joe Maddon, have been the hottest team in baseball for more than two months. \u00a0Since July 28th, the Cubs are 45-18, better than all other 29 teams in baseball. They have the hottest pitcher on the planet in\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/a\/arrieja01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\">Jake Arrieta<\/a>\u00a0who, in his last 18 starts during the regular season, went 17-1 with a 0.89 ERA, which included a no-hitter. \u00a0Arrieta followed that up with a complete game shutout in the Wild Card game in Pittsburgh. \u00a0The Cubs&#8217; ace did show some chinks in the armor, though, in Game 3 of the Division Series when he allowed 4 runs in 5.2 innings to St. Louis.<\/p>\n<p>This is an LCS match-up that never could have happened until the Wild Card era and divisional realignment in 1995; both teams were members of the NL East until 1994 (along, incidentally with both St. Louis and Pittsburgh). The Cubs of course have been baseball&#8217;s laughingstock for over a century. \u00a0The last time the Cubs won the World Series, Teddy Roosevelt was president (it was 1908). \u00a0The last time the Cubs even\u00a0<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">made<\/span> the World Series was just two months after the nuclear blasts in Hiroshima and Nagasaki that ended World War II (in 1945 in case you skipped history classes every year of your life).<\/p>\n<p>So the lovable and longtime loser Cubs will certainly be the sentimental favorite of every baseball fan who isn&#8217;t a Mets fan. This will be a ratings bonanza for TBS, with two of the three biggest media markets and the national interest the Cubs will provide. \u00a0Game 1 is Saturday night !!<\/p>\n<p>Thanks for reading<\/p>\n<p>Chris Bodig<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One year ago the New York Mets and Chicago Cubs lost more games than they won. \u00a0In 2015, starting Saturday night, they will meet for the National League Championship Series to determine which team will represent the league in the World Series. Thursday night the Mets edged the Los Angeles Dodgers 3-2 with a gritty [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":779,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-baseball","category-new-york-mets"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.chrisbodig.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/METS-WIN-2015-NLDS.png?fit=617%2C418&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5rqzv-cx","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":798,"url":"https:\/\/www.chrisbodig.com\/?p=798","url_meta":{"origin":777,"position":0},"title":"Murph Strikes Again: the Mets win Game 3","author":"chrisbodig@gmail.com","date":"October 20, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Having now hit five home runs in his last five post-season games, I think we can no longer resist the inevitable:\u00a0Daniel Murphy\u00a0of the New York Mets should run for Speaker of the House. \u00a0Murphy, a native of Jacksonville, Florida, is a Christian conservative and could unite the warring factions of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Baseball&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Baseball","link":"https:\/\/www.chrisbodig.com\/?cat=12"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":792,"url":"https:\/\/www.chrisbodig.com\/?p=792","url_meta":{"origin":777,"position":1},"title":"The Dark Knight Rises: Mets Win Game 1","author":"chrisbodig@gmail.com","date":"October 17, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"The teams of tomorrow opened their 7-game National League Championship Series tonight and the New York Mets prevailed with a 4-2 win over the Chicago Cubs thanks to a spectacular start by\u00a0Matt Harvey, who out-dueled post-season veteran\u00a0Jon Lester, who owns two World Series rings with the Boston Red Sox. Harvey\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Baseball&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Baseball","link":"https:\/\/www.chrisbodig.com\/?cat=12"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.chrisbodig.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/MATT-HARVEY.png?fit=779%2C482&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.chrisbodig.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/MATT-HARVEY.png?fit=779%2C482&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.chrisbodig.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/MATT-HARVEY.png?fit=779%2C482&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.chrisbodig.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/MATT-HARVEY.png?fit=779%2C482&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":747,"url":"https:\/\/www.chrisbodig.com\/?p=747","url_meta":{"origin":777,"position":2},"title":"The 7th inning and Clayton Kershaw","author":"chrisbodig@gmail.com","date":"October 10, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"What a fun night for fans of the New York Mets last night, especially those of us who live in Los Angeles and had the opportunity to attend Game 1 of the National League Division Series against the Dodgers. You could not have asked for a better pitching match-up: the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Baseball&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Baseball","link":"https:\/\/www.chrisbodig.com\/?cat=12"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.chrisbodig.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/CLAYTON-KERSHAW.png?fit=470%2C487&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":763,"url":"https:\/\/www.chrisbodig.com\/?p=763","url_meta":{"origin":777,"position":3},"title":"The Slide and the Aftermath","author":"chrisbodig@gmail.com","date":"October 11, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"On Saturday night at the start of the 7th inning, trailing 2-1 to the New York Mets, the Los Angeles Dodgers were facing the daunting prospect of being down two games to none in a best of five series. \u00a0But then pinch-hitter\u00a0Chase Utley delivered a base hit and a slide\/tackle\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Baseball&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Baseball","link":"https:\/\/www.chrisbodig.com\/?cat=12"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.chrisbodig.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/UTLEYS-SLIDE-AP.png?fit=619%2C491&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.chrisbodig.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/UTLEYS-SLIDE-AP.png?fit=619%2C491&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.chrisbodig.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/UTLEYS-SLIDE-AP.png?fit=619%2C491&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":808,"url":"https:\/\/www.chrisbodig.com\/?p=808","url_meta":{"origin":777,"position":4},"title":"Post-mortem: the 2015 World Series","author":"chrisbodig@gmail.com","date":"November 2, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"For a disinterested baseball fan, without a rooting interest of either team, the 2015 World Series between the Kansas City Royals and New York Mets was about as good as you could get for a 5-game series: two extra inning games and three games that turned in the final two\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Baseball&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Baseball","link":"https:\/\/www.chrisbodig.com\/?cat=12"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.chrisbodig.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/ROYALS-WIN.jpg?fit=780%2C438&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.chrisbodig.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/ROYALS-WIN.jpg?fit=780%2C438&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.chrisbodig.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/ROYALS-WIN.jpg?fit=780%2C438&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.chrisbodig.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/ROYALS-WIN.jpg?fit=780%2C438&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":472,"url":"https:\/\/www.chrisbodig.com\/?p=472","url_meta":{"origin":777,"position":5},"title":"Baseball&#8217;s Opening Day: Today and 30 Years Ago","author":"chrisbodig@gmail.com","date":"April 6, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"It's always one of my very favorite days of the year: Opening Day for Major League Baseball. \u00a0For many in the colder parts of the USA, it's a line of demarcation between winter and spring. \u00a0For fans of the grand old game, the anticipation towards Opening Day is not unlike\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Baseball&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Baseball","link":"https:\/\/www.chrisbodig.com\/?cat=12"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.chrisbodig.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/GARY-CARTER.jpg?fit=380%2C392&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chrisbodig.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chrisbodig.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chrisbodig.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrisbodig.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrisbodig.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=777"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrisbodig.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":782,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrisbodig.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/777\/revisions\/782"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrisbodig.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chrisbodig.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrisbodig.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chrisbodig.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}