The Mets are facing elimination after their 10-2 NLCS Game 4 loss to the Dodgers on Thursday night, but that feeling is something this team has become accustomed to.
It might be easy to forget how the baseball world left them for dead when they were 11 games under .500 or when they got swept in Seattle or had to go on a hectic road trip at the end of the season. Or play a doubleheader in Atlanta the day after the regular season ended just to get into the playoffs.
So when the final out on Game 4 was made, the players were unsurprisingly even-keel talking to the media, speaking about the team’s resiliency they’ve shown all year and how they’ll approach Friday’s win-or-go-home game the same way they do every game.
“We’ve had our backs against the wall before. Now we do it again and we’re going to do our best to add to the story and make some more magic,” Brandon Nimmo said after the game. “It’s definitely not easy, and nothing we’ve done to this point has been. That’s the fitting part of the story. We’re definitely not going to give up and fight to the very end. Anything is possible until it’s over.”
Coming back from a 3-1 deficit in the best-of-seven series would be a fitting addition to the story of this Mets team but doing it against the Dodgers, the team with the best record in the National League and who has outscored the Mets 27-2 in New York’s three losses, would be something else entirely. But it wouldn’t be unprecedented.
The 2024 Mets are the 94th team to be down 3-1. Only 14 teams out of the previous 93 times have come back from that deficit (15 percent).
Interestingly enough, the Mets only have to look across to the other dugout to see the last team to achieve such a feat. The 2020 Dodgers came back from 3-1 against the Braves in the NLCS. Before that, the 2016 Chicago Cubs ran off three straight wins in the World Series against Francisco Lindor and the then-Cleveland Indians.
“Take it one day at a time just like we’ve done it all year,” Lindor said after the Game 4 loss. “If you have no belief you shouldn’t be here. You have to fight for what you want. At the end of the day, it comes down to one day at a time and executing. We have an opportunity to win one game in the NLCS. We have to play the game better than they do.”
Playing better than the Dodgers has been tough so far for the Mets. On Thursday, Jose Quintana allowed five runs in only 3.1 innings pitched and the offense was 0-for-10 with RISP and left 12 men on base. That combination has been a recipe for disaster for the Mets in all three losses in this series. Despite that, though, the players continue to stay positive and see a path forward.
“This is not over yet,” Quintana exclaimed to the media after his start. “We can keep fighting and go back to get a win. We can fight but it was a tough night for us. We need to move forward, turn the page and come back tomorrow.”
“I believe in this group,” Pete Alonso said in his usual upbeat, non-salient tone. “This group has responded so well to adversity all year. The character of this team – the one word I can think of of the 2024 Mets other than Grimace is resiliency. That’s just who we are.
“We have fun, we enjoy the moment but at the end of the day, we’re a resilient bunch. And we respond in a very positive way and we play for each other. I have no doubt that we will respond well and accept the challenge.”
The Mets will look to lefty David Peterson in Game 5 to stave off elimination at least for one more game and the young southpaw is ready to put his poor Game 1 performance behind him.
“We’ve gone through a lot this year and it’s made us who we are at this point,” Peterson said. “I’m ready to go out there with the guys, compete our butts off and see where it gets us.”
Game 5 will be in front of a raucous Citi Field crowd for the last time in this series. If the Mets can capture a win on Friday, they’ll head to Los Angeles for Game 6 and a potential Game 7 over the weekend.
But that’s thinking too far ahead. The mindset of this Mets team remains the same after every game, whether the series is tied 0-0 or they’re down 3-1.
“[Mindset is the] same as it’s always been. Try to go 1-0,” Nimmo said. “We had our backs against the wall before. It’s real. You lose one game and it’s done. We had it in Milwaukee when we were down to our final out. We still approach it the same way. If we come back, it’s going to be a heckuva story.”
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