PHILADELPHIA — The New York Mets did that thing again.
It’s the one where they trail for a while yet keep the deficit close. And then late in a game … Whammo! They start striking, with one quality at-bat after another.
After getting shut out and trailing by one run through the first seven innings, the Mets scored five runs in the eighth Thursday night to steal Game 1 of the National Division Series from the favored Philadelphia Phillies, 6-2.
Since Sept. 1, the Mets have scored at least four runs in an inning 13 times. Only the Los Angeles Dodgers (14 times) have pulled the feat off more often in that span.
“We just stay on it,” Mets co-hitting coach Jeremy Barnes said. “If they slip up a little bit, we’re ready to pounce on it. There’s a belief in there. Everyone believes we can do it.”
Brandon Nimmo was among the Mets who came through in the clutch after falling behind 0-2 in the count. (Heather Barry / Getty Images)
With insights from players, coaches and scouts plus observations from Game 1, here’s an anatomy of the five-run eighth inning that featured nine batters coming to the plate in the latest example of the Mets’ magic at work.
Phillies starter Zack Wheeler masterfully held the Mets to just one hit and four walks over seven scoreless innings. He induced 30 swings-and-misses. Still, the Mets didn’t hate their approach. That said, they didn’t mind seeing someone different, either. In the eighth inning, Mets catcher Francisco Alvarez greeted right-hander Jeff Hoffman with a hard-hit single on an 0-1 offering. That brought star shortstop Francisco Lindor to the plate, representing the go-ahead run.
Over the last couple of weeks, Lindor has repeated a mantra that he first heard Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns tell the team during a meeting: You don’t have to be The Guy — just be yourself. Lindor interpreted that as: Trust the next guy, too. It’s a twist on the old cliché of not trying to do too much. When it comes to trying to not do too much, Lindor is a master at ending up doing plenty.
After falling behind in the count 0-2, Lindor worked a walk, fouling off one pitch and then laying off four straight pitches that sailed out of the strike zone.
At that point, he looked over to the Mets’ dugout and reset himself.
“It’s not trying to be The Guy — just understanding there’s a lot of guys behind me that can get it done,” Lindor said. “It was, take a moment to look at the dugout and see everybody on the top step telling me not to worry about it. I’ve got Mark Vientos behind me and Brandon Nimmo and Pete Alonso and Jose Iglesias. I don’t have to be The Guy.
“I trust my teammates. I feel like we are here because we know how to play the game and nobody’s trying to be bigger than the moment.”
Lindor kept the line moving. Just as he wanted to do.
Mark Vientos’ RBI single
In September, the Phillies pitched the Mets third baseman tough. Really tough. Like, throw-Vientos-nothing-but-nasty-stuff-on-the-corners-then-force-him-to-chase stuff. In 44 plate appearances against the Phillies during the regular season, Vientos struck out a whopping 20 times and hit .225 with a .671 OPS (some of his worst numbers against any team).
Then, in the eighth inning, Vientos fell behind in the count 0-2 after looking at consecutive fastballs.
No matter.
After taking a slider just off the plate for a ball, Vientos smacked the next pitch, another slider, to left field for a single that tied the score at 1-1. Hoffman said he wanted the pitch to break more, but thought he threw it in a good spot. He credited Vientos.
“I feel like I have been noticing a different approach toward me this last month, September or early October,” Vientos said. “But my approach lately, especially in these meaningful games we’re trying to win, the only thing that’s in my head is just what can I do to get on base, what can I do to move a runner over.
“In that situation in the eighth inning, man on first and second, I was just trying to hit a pop fly and move the runner to second, third, and have Nimmo do his thing. I’m just trying to be as simple as possible, and just like we keep saying, pass the baton.”
From the Mets’ coaches’ perspective, the most impressive thing about Vientos, who broke out as an offensive force in 2024, is his ability to prevent emotion from getting in his way.
“He’s staying convicted,” Barnes said. “It’s so easy to get in these games at the end of the season, let alone the postseason, and emotions take over, and it’s like, oh, they dotted a pitch and it’s, ‘I gotta cover that,’ or, ‘I gotta do this.’ You end up playing catch-up the whole time. As opposed to where I think he has — and we as a team have — done a good job with is, staying convicted to the game plan.”
For a 24-year-old like Vientos, that’s big. The other coaches rave about his growth when it comes to refining his game plan and approach. For example, he used to just see high velocity in the cages but switched to breaking balls and offspeed after pitchers started feeding him more of that variety. The coaches attribute Vientos’ accelerated progression to his willingness to learn from the veterans in the clubhouse.
Barnes said, “We have Francisco Lindor on the team. We have Brandon Nimmo on the team. We have J.D. Martinez on the team. The amount of experience we have and the amount of veterans we have who are more than willing to pass along that experience and information to players like Mark is huge. He’s just absorbing it.”
Brandon Nimmo’s RBI single
After Vientos’ hit, the Phillies called on Matt Strahm to relieve Hoffman, putting a lefty on the mound to face the left-handed batting Nimmo. Again, a Mets batter fell behind 0-2 in the count. Again, a Mets batter came through.
Nimmo’s opposite-field single scored Lindor to give the Mets a 2-1 lead. In one major way, Nimmo’s success in the postseason is a microcosm of the Mets’ never-say-quit approach. In the playoffs, Nimmo is 3-for-18 in his plate appearances from the first inning through the seventh inning of games. In the eighth and ninth innings of games, he is 4-for-6.
“You never know when they’re going to come,” Nimmo said. “You try to make plans and you try and take your shots, and you just never know when they’re going to be over the middle of the plate and it’s going to work. But you just keep taking your shot just in case.
“I’ve just been fortunate to have some base hits later in the game. It’s not like I’m doing anything different. I’m still coming up with a plan. It’s still all the same process, just happens to be a nice coincidence.”
After Hoffman failed to retire a batter, Strahm recorded just one out, throwing 17 pitches with all of them strikes.
Said Strahm, “They smelled blood in the water.”
Jose Iglesias’ single in a 10-pitch at-bat
Despite walking just 4 percent of the time, Jose Iglesias sees 3.69 pitches per plate appearance. One reason those figures compute: Iglesias tends to foul off tons of pitches.
“He’s ridiculous,” Barnes said. “His bat-to-ball skills are second to none.”
After Alonso followed Nimmo’s single with an RBI sacrifice fly, Iglesias took a turn doing his usual thing. After taking a strike and then swinging through one, Iglesias was down in the count 0-2. Sounds familiar, right? But only Iglesias routinely does what came next: He fouled off seven straight pitches. On the 10th pitch of the at-bat, he hit a single to center field.
“Huge at-bat,” Barnes said. “Just a really huge at-bat.”
As Phillies shortstop Trea Turner put it, “The Iglesias at-bat was crazy.”
For Iglesias, it was normal business. After signing a minor-league deal and not reaching the majors until the end of May, Iglesias, a 34-year-old playing in his 13th season, managed to hit .337, using a deft combination of contact and hustle.
“Something we don’t talk about a ton is he’s done a great job in his career of taking care of his body,” Barnes said. “He’s not a young puppy anymore, and he’s out there playing for us every single day. He still has the speed, all that stuff in the tool bag. He’s starting to use a little bit of the information that is available in today’s game, he has that 13 years of experience, he’s been there in these big moments. He just seems to rise to the occasion. He’s been absolutely phenomenal for us.”
After Iglesias’ single, J.D. Martinez came off the bench and ripped an RBI single. Then Starling Marte added an RBI sacrifice fly. In total, the Mets had a walk, two sacrifice flyouts and racked up five hits in the inning, all singles.
At this point, it’s a style that they’ve gotten used to.
“When we’re clicking as a team offensively, there’s so many things that we do,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said. “We put the ball in play, we use the whole field and we’re not thinking too big. And we did it today, again.
“Situational hitting today was really good. A couple of sac flies, and that’s not easy to do when you’re facing those types of arms. So credit to our guys. They continue to do it.”
(Photo of Mark Vientos: Hunter Martin / Getty Images)
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