NEW YORK — Nine games under . 500 and left for dead in early June, the New York Mets are proving ripe for October.
Francisco Lindor hit a grand slam in the sixth inning, the 30-year-old shortstop’s latest clutch swing in an extraordinary season full of them, and the Mets reached the National League Championship Series with a 4-1 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies on Wednesday.
Edwin Díaz struck out Kyle Schwarber with two runners aboard to end it as sixth-seeded New York finished off the second-seeded Phillies in Game 4 of a best-of-five NL Division Series between NL East Division rivals.
The Mets, who last month won three of four against the Phillies at Citi Field to prevent the eventual division champs from clinching in Queens, wrapped up a postseason series at home for the first time in 24 years.
Immediately afterward in a raucous locker room, the Mets had their first champagne-soaked clinching celebration in Citi Field’s 16-season history.
“I want to win it all. And ours will be a team that will forever be remembered,” Lindor said, speaking in the interview room with one of his young daughters on his lap drinking from a Gatorade bottle.
“This will be a team that comes every 10 years and eats for free everywhere they go. And I want to do that. I want to do that. But the job is not done.”
With tears in his eyes, outfielder Brandon Nimmo had embraced Lindor earlier as the Mets poured onto the field in excitement after the final out.
The last time the Mets won a playoff series in their own ballpark was the 2000 NLCS at Shea Stadium.
“This is the kind of stuff that I was dreaming about,” Nimmo said in a clubhouse interview shown on the giant videoboard in center field. “This has been a long time coming. We wanted it so bad for our fan base.”
After three days of rest, New York will open the best-of-seven NLCS on Sunday, with the opener hosted by one of two NL West teams, either the fourth-seeded San Diego Padres or the top-seeded Los Angeles Dodgers. Those teams will play a decisive Game 5 at Dodger Stadium on Friday.
“Let’s keep this thing rolling!” Mets slugger Pete Alonso told reveling fans still in the stands when he popped out of the clubhouse party for an on-field interview with his large goggles protecting his eyes. “So proud of this group. We’ve overcome so much.”
The Mets are chasing their third World Series title and first since 1986.
“I want to slay the negative Met fan perceptions, and we’re on our way to doing that,” team owner Steve Cohen said.
For the Phillies, who won 95 games in the regular season and finished six ahead of the wild-card Mets in the division standings, it was a bitter exit early in the playoffs and another disappointing step backward after they advanced to the 2022 World Series and then lost Games 6 and 7 of the 2023 NLCS at home to the Arizona Diamondbacks.
After falling short again in October, the Phillies are still looking for the franchise’s third championship to go with the titles from 1980 and 2008.
“We have a really great group. We got beat in a short series,” manager Rob Thomson said.
Perhaps overanxious at the plate with so much on the table, the Mets left the bases loaded in the first and second innings against starter Ranger Suárez and stranded eight runners overall through the first five.
They put three runners on again in the sixth, this time with nobody out, before No. 9 batter Francisco Alvarez grounded into a force at the plate against MLB All-Star reliever Jeff Hoffman.
With the season on the line, Thomson then summoned closer Carlos Estévez to face Lindor, who drove a 2-1 fastball clocked at 99 mph into Philadelphia’s bullpen in right-center field, giving New York a 4-1 lead and sending the sold-out crowd of 44,103 into a delirious, bouncing, throbbing frenzy.
“I knew it right away,” Estévez said. “I knew I wanted to go a little bit higher on the pitch. Unfortunately, it was more like middle-away instead of up and away, and as soon as he hit it, I knew he hit it really well.”
With his first homer of these playoffs, Lindor joined Shane Victorino and National Baseball Hall of Fame slugger Jim Thome as the only major leaguers with two postseason grand slams. Lindor also connected for Cleveland at Yankee Stadium in Game 2 of a 2017 American League Division Series.
Edgardo Alfonzo hit the only other postseason slam in Mets history, during a 1999 NLDS at Arizona. Robin Ventura’s “grand-slam single” (with the game won, the celebration started and he never advanced beyond first base, thus no home run) against the Atlanta Braves in the NLCS that year doesn’t count.
“Got runners on, and we couldn’t come up with a big hit until finally, who else? The MVP. I keep saying you could write a book. You could make a movie, because this is it right here,” Mets rookie manager Carlos Mendoza said.
“And then the whole time the inning is unfolding, Lindor is going to do it again. There’s no panic. The way he controls the emotions and he hits that ball, it’s unbelievable.”
Fans chanted “MVP! MVP!” as Lindor disappeared into the dugout and again when he took his position in the field in the seventh.
Game 3 on Tuesday was Lindor’s first opportunity to play at Citi Field since Sept. 8, after he missed time down the stretch with a back injury. Yet few players — if any — have been as valuable to their team this year as Lindor, who has provided a remarkable string of big hits and crucial contributions as the Mets rallied from a 24-35 start to reach their first NLCS since 2015, when they would reach the World Series before falling to the Kansas City Royals.
His tying homer in the ninth inning broke up a no-hit bid by the host Toronto Blue Jays’ Bowden Francis’ no-hit bid on Sept. 11 and sparked a critical Mets victory, and his go-ahead homer in the ninth on Sept. 30 in Atlanta clinched a playoff berth.
“It just gets better and better,” Cohen said. “In that situation, he just comes through over and over again.”
Lindor also fought back from a 1-2 count to draw an eight-pitch walk leading off the ninth against MLB All-Star closer Devin Williams last week in Milwaukee, helping to set up Alonso’s go-ahead homer that saved New York’s season and clinched a series victory against the Brewers in the wild-card round.
“It’s been an uphill fight. It’s been tough. But we’re still not where we want to be,” Lindor said. “This road, it’s been, yeah, it’s been curvy — but I wouldn’t want it any other way.”
Mets starter Jose Quintana didn’t allow an earned run in five-plus innings of two-hit ball, and David Peterson pitched 2 1/3 scoreless innings for the win.
Díaz walked his first two batters in the ninth, prompting groans in the stands, but retired the next three — two on strikeouts — for the first postseason save of his career.
Shut down at the plate all series with the exception a late comeback to win Game 2 at home, the Phillies scored their only run Wednesday on an error by third baseman Mark Vientos in the fourth.
Hoffman took his second loss, the latest flop by a Phillies bullpen that failed to deliver throughout the series.
“Some of it’s execution, maybe some of it’s being familiar with our guys,” Thomson said. “I don’t know. It should work both ways, though.”
AP photo by Gregory Bull / Mookie Betts celebrates as he rounds the bases after hitting a solo homer for the Los Angeles Dodgers during Game 4 of an NL Division Series against the host San Diego Padres on Wednesday.Dodgers 8, Padres 0
SAN DIEGO — Mookie Betts homered for the second straight night, Shohei Ohtani hit an RBI single, and the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the San Diego Padres to force a deciding Game 5 in a tense NLDS.
Will Smith and Gavin Lux each hit a two-run homer for the Dodgers, who snapped a two-game losing streak and now return home for the next matchup.
“We have a bunch of grinders, a bunch of fighters,” Betts said after the Dodgers posted the largest shutout win in the franchise’s postseason history. “We knew it wasn’t going to be easy.”
The Padres won 10-2 at Dodger Stadium in Game 2 on Sunday night, when tempers flared on the field and in the stands.
Friday’s winner will have home-field advantage in the NLCS against the Mets.
“I’m proud. … Your desire’s got to be more than your opponent’s,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “To see our guys go through what they’ve been through and respond the way they have, it makes me excited about Game 5.”
The Dodgers got a superb effort by their first pitcher on the mound, Ryan Brasier, and seven fellow relievers in a bullpen game, holding the Padres to seven hits and extending their scoreless streak to 15 innings. Evan Phillips, who got the win, retired Jurickson Profar, Manny Machado and Jackson Merrill on five pitches in the sixth.
“Overall the guys were efficient, understanding that they’re going to have to do up-downs, go a little bit longer potentially,” Roberts said. “So the efficiency of the strike zone was huge, and it gives us options for Game 5.”
The Dodgers hushed the Petco Park-record crowd of 47,773 that had hoped to see their team eliminate their neighbors to the north in the NLDS for the second time in three seasons.
With All-Star first baseman Freddie Freeman sidelined by a troublesome right ankle sprain, Betts and Ohtani needed to produce to keep the season alive for the visistors. They did just that, with Betts driving in two runs on two hits and Ohtani bringing in one run and reaching base three times.
With the Dodgers up 5-0, Ohtani was thrown out trying to score from second on Teoscar Hernández’s single in the fourth that caromed off third baseman Machado’s glove and hit umpire Mark Ripperger. Machado circled around the ump, grabbed the ball and fired it to catcher Kyle Higashioka, who tagged the NL MVP favorite for the third out.
The Padres’ gamble to start Dylan Cease on short rest backfired. He got Ohtani to ground out opening the game before Betts homered on a full-count pitch. Cease put on two runners with one out in the second, and after getting the second out, was chased by Ohtani’s RBI single to right on his 38th pitch.
“I like how the ball was coming out of my hand and I didn’t feel like I shot myself in the foot too much, which I felt like I’ve been doing. I felt good out there,” Cease said. “It depended on results, and unfortunately the results weren’t here today.”
Betts hit an RBI single on Bryan Hoeing’s first pitch for a 3-0 lead, quieting the towel-waving sellout crowd.
This time, Betts had no doubt about his home run. He drove a 3-2 pitch into the Padres’ bullpen beyond the fence in left-center and raised his right index finger as he rounded first while Ohtani raised his arms in celebration in the dugout.
On Tuesday night, Betts homered to left but thought Jurickson Profar had robbed him once again and turned toward the dugout before his teammates and even Padres starter Michael King motioned that it was a homer. Profar robbed Betts of a home run in Game 2 on Sunday night at Dodger Stadium and trolled the fans. That game was stopped for 12 minutes after fans threw baseballs at Profar and trash onto the outfield.
Betts snapped an 0-for-22 playoff slump with his homer Tuesday night.
“I’m not trying to win the game for us. And we’ve got plenty of guys that can win games for us,” Betts said. “I just want to do my part in the team. And that’s all I’ve been focused on.”
Ohtani hit a tying three-run homer off Cease in the slugger’s highly anticipated playoff debut, a 7-5 victory on Saturday night. Ohtani, who won two American League MVP awards while playing his first six MLB seasons with the Los Angeles Angels, became the first member of the 50-50 club this season with 54 homers and 59 stolen bases, starring in his first year with the Dodgers.
With Max Muncy aboard on a leadoff double in the third, Smith drove a pitch from Hoeing to the batter’s eye in straightaway center field for a 5-0 lead. The Dodgers added on in the seventh with Tommy Edman’s sacrifice fly and Lux’s two-run shot to right off Wandy Peralta.
The Dodgers kept slugger Fernando Tatis Jr. in the yard after he hit three homers in the first three games, including two on Sunday night, and four overall this postseason. Brasier struck out Tatis in the first, the star’s first whiff in six playoff games.
“They executed as a group tonight, credit to them,” Tatis said. “We were rolling as an offense. But we had a couple of innings that didn’t go in our favor. We need to get a better approach at the plate. … just better at-bats as a group.”