The New York Mets will be the favorites in the World Series. That is an opinion right now but it should be a fact regardless of who emerges from the American League Championship Series, Kansas City or Toronto. The Mets have everything clicking right now. Their bats are on fire and manager Terry Collins’ neophyte rotation is bringing the heat as well. They have disposed of the three top pitchers in the National League in clinical fashion. There doesn’t look like anything can slow this surprise juggernaut down. Get ready for a love fest for the Big Apple’s little brothers. What a difference a month makes.
The pitching staff is the key to it all. The quartet of Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard, Matt Harvey, and Steven Matz are embodying everything that the infamous “Generation K” were supposed to twenty years ago. There was hype surrounding the Mets’ bevy of options pitching-wise heading into 2015, but the expectations were set for the future rather than the present. deGrom spent this year showing that his breakout Rookie of the Year winning 2014 wasn’t a fluke. Harvey, all drama aside, made coming back from Tommy John surgery look simple. The midseason call-ups of Syndergaard and Matz only solidified the team’s glaring strength.
But it wasn’t just the starters that propelled this team to the brink of a world championship. With the Jenrry Mejia saga finally behind them, the Mets have found their true ninth inning man in Jeurys Familia. The hard throwing Dominican hasn’t been scored on this postseason and has a filthy WHIP of 0.41. The bridge to him has been a bit wobbly, but with the starters going deep and Familia getting into all but one game thus far, they could afford to be. You haven’t witnessed comedy until you see Bartolo Colon briskly jog out the bullpen and get winded halfway there and get to the mound at what only can be described as the world’s slowest power walk.
Speaking of comedy, it is laughable that teams are still pitching to the baseball equivalent of the Human Torch, Daniel Murphy. The Mets second baseman set a new MLB record last night by homering in his sixth consecutive game. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, Murphy became just the third man in the history of the game to take the league’s leaders in wins (Jake Arrieta), ERA (Zack Greinke), and strikeouts (Clayton Kershaw) over the fence. The other two: Frank Thomas and Mickey Mantle. The fact that Murphy has only been walked once this postseason is mind boggling. It is as if these teams have lost their access to media streams or game tapes. To call his play at this point unconscious would be an understatement. It is a shame that there may not be any Cy Young candidates from Kansas City for him to conquer if they advance. David Price should be quivering in his high socks.
That takes us to the two teams still vying to earn their spot opposite the Metropolitans on baseball’s grandest stage: the Royals and the Blue Jays. The series has seen both teams assert their dominance in the ways they know best. Kansas City has won with adept baserunning and timely hitting. Their starting pitching has done enough for them to get by as Lorenzo Cain and company have dink and dunked their way to some crooked numbers on the scoreboard. Toronto has been their typical feast or famine selves. The pitching has been erratic throughout, even in their good spells. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that they wouldn’t take back the Sydergaard/Travis d’Arnaud for R.A. Dickey trade in a heartbeat. The bats have found themselves dormant in their three losses but have been more than alive in their two wins. The attrition that these two teams are enduring over this series are going to make them easy pickings for the Mets.
This is the time where we dial it back a bit. Many a Met fan doesn’t want to get too ahead of themselves because they know all too well the torture that this team can bestow upon them at a moment’s notice. However, there is something different about this Mets team that sets them apart from their past editions. They have already busted the ghosts of Aaron Heilman’s gopher ball to Yadier Molina and Carlos Beltran’s called third strike by making it to the World Series. Their opponent won’t be coming in on a massive World Series winning streak like the 2000 Yankees were. These Mets are the team to be feared. They have this year’s David Freese, Barry Bonds, and Carlos Beltran (Houston version) rolled into one soon to be overpaid package. (I’m sorry, as a Dodgers fan I had to take one token pot shot.) The city that never sleeps is dyed orange and blue and it isn’t for the upcoming Knicks campaign. You gotta believe that the Mets will be favorites in a week’s time, and you gotta believe that they will win the whole damn thing.