GIANTS 3/METS 0
The National League Wild Card game lived up to the hype. A
game that featured two of the games bright young aces, Madison Bumgarner and
Noah Syndergaard, was one for the ages. Yet at the end of the day, the San
Francisco Giants won this one-and-done playoff game the same way they have won
three World Series championships in their five previous seasons.
The San Francisco Giants won because they got the most out of
their players when it mattered the most, especially from the most obscure
players on the roster, and, they won by riding the left arm of the game’s
modern day Koufax in Madison Bumgarner.
Through the game’s first four innings it was Syndergaard who
was on top in this clash of titans. Syndergaard, or better known as “Thor,” was
overpowering hitters with a heater that cracked 99 mph and a slider that hit
93. He was working away on hitters, establishing the outer half of the plate
that was his canvas for much of the evening. When needed to, he would work his
way back inside, challenging hitters with sliders, and some two-seam fastball
action.
The technical language of pitching aside, it was nothing
short of brilliant. Thor struck out 10 batters over seven innings of work. He
had a no hitter through five-and-two-thirds innings, and don’t let anyone tell
you that they didn’t think Syndergaard could have a shot at joining Doc
Halladay and Don Larsen as the only pitchers to throw a no-no in the
postseason.
For a while, it looked really possible.
He blew away Denard Span in the first at bat of the game on
swinging strike three, backing the leadoff hitter off of the plate. He then
came back to blow away Brandon Crawford and Angel Pagan in the second inning.
In the top of the third inning, Syndergaard made quick work of Joe Panick and
Connor Gillaspie by striking out both hitters swinging. Finally in the fourth
inning, with a runner aboard, he struck out Hunter Pence on a slider that
dropped low and away for the final out of the inning. Just that like, “Thor”
had six strikeouts in four innings.
Of the nine hitters in the San Fran lineup, only Brandon
Belt and Buster Posey didn’t strikeout against Syndergaard. Ironically,
Bumgarner was the only hitter who didn’t strikeout swinging against him.
Speaking of Bumgarner, he was on point too. He needed only 21
pitches to get through the first three innings of the game. While he wasn’t overpowering, he was
effective in jamming hitters early in counts.
By the bottom of the fourth inning Bumgarner kicked things
into high gear after he had just watched Denard Span get robbed of a stolen
base on a blown replay review by the umpires in the top half of the inning. Had
Span been ruled safe, the Giants would have had a great chance to score the
first run of the day.
It is moments like these where a pitcher comes up big and
settles down the noise. Bumgarner did just that. With Asdrubal Cabrera at first base on a
one-out single, he struck out Yoenis Cespedes swinging and retired Curtis
Granderson on a soft liner to center to get out of the jam. The controversy in the top of the fourth? All
but forgotten.
From that point on, Bumgarner only got stronger. He got out
of a tight jam in the bottom of the fifth inning, then proceeded to hold the
Mets to just two base runners for the rest of the evening.
As for Syndergaard, he started walking a tight rope. He got
out of a huge jam in the sixth when Curtis Granderson crashed into the center
field wall to rob Brandon Belt of a RBI double. Then, in the top of the seventh
inning, while clearly running out of gas, Syndergaard was able to get Joe Panik
to bounce out on a hard grounder to shortstop to get out of a two-on-two-out
jam.
Finally, it was up to the Mets bullpen and they just weren’t
up to the task. Try as Addison Reed and Jeurys Familia must, they couldn’t
replicate the power and deceptiveness by which Syndergaard pitched to.
Give Reed credit, he did get out of a bases loaded jam in
the eighth when he struck out Hunter Pence swinging. But it was the last moment
where Mets fans believed that this was destined to be their night, because
Bumgarner quickly dashed those dreams in the bottom of the eighth like stealing
candy from a baby.
Connor Gillaspie then stomped on those dreams some more in
the ninth.
Against a closer in Familia who nailed down 51 games in the
regular season, the Giants quickly rallied with a Crawford double and a walk to
Panik. Then it was up to Gillaspie, a guy who had only one home run in the
month of September, and had played in only 16 games in the final month of the
year. Heck he wasn’t even supposed to play, Eduardo Nunez was supposed to start
at third, but he had a hamstring injury. Of course, it was Gillaspie who
crushed the Familiar fastball into the Mets bullpen in right.
With the lead, there was no question that Bruce Bouchy would
go back to his stud. As soon Bumgarner headed back out to the hill for the
ninth it was like the abrupt series finale of the Sopranos several years back,
cut to black … on a wild, crazy and unbelievable Mets season.
Comments