Mets shift focus to 3-game series vs. Dodgers after sweeping Athletics
LOS ANGELES — The Mets found three heroes in three games over the weekend in a sweep of the Oakland Athletics and that’s exactly what they were looking for. With nine guys on the field and eight more in the bullpen, the Mets want to emphasize playing a solid team game and not being overly reliant on one big bat or one big arm.
Baseball can often be an individual sport disguised as a team sport but games are won and lost as a team. It might sound cliche to say but the Mets really do need contributions from just about everyone if they want to come away from this 12-day, 10-game road trip with a winning record.
“Coming out here for two weeks is a really big challenge for us,” said first baseman Pete Alonso. “We played really good ball this series and we want to keep playing great team baseball for the rest of the road trip.”
Alonso had a massive home run in the third game of the series in Oakland, driving one 430 feet to tie the game and give the Mets a chance in extra innings.
Outfielder Brandon Nimmo also had two fantastic catches, the bullpen did a good job working out of trouble and manager Buck Showalter said he was proud of the way right-hander Jose Butto pitched after being called up from Triple-A Syracuse. The club optioned him to Syracuse on Monday afternoon.
“I thought we did a really great job of fighting back and we got that big hit,” Nimmo said. “We could have just chalked it up and been like, ‘Oh well, it’s a series win. We’ll get ‘em in L.A.’ But we fought back and Pete, in particular, came up huge there. He absolutely destroyed that ball and he’s been off to an unbelievable tear.”
But it only gets harder from here for the Mets, who are now in Los Angeles for the second series of the trip against the Dodgers. These two teams both won more than 100 games last season and also suffered early round playoff exits at the hands of the San Diego Padres. They’re both without several key players due to injuries.
The Mets will face three tough pitchers in Dustin May, Clayton Kershaw and Noah Syndergaard. May has been exceptionally good to start the season going 1-1 with a 1.47 ERA in his first three starts. Kershaw hasn’t quite been his characteristic self but he’s still been effective this season, and Syndergaard continues to get outs with a low-90s fastball instead of the triple-digit stuff he had with the Mets.
The Dodgers are coming off a series loss to the Chicago Cubs and are searching for some answers.
The Mets haven’t received much production from the bottom of the order but they’re hoping Brett Baty will change that. And as much as they don’t want to rely on their heaviest hitter, Alonso will be the one to watch this week: he comes into the series slashing .360/.396/.880 at Chavez Ravine and he entered Monday leading the majors with eight home runs.
Should he keep up this pace, he might find himself in the MVP conversation later on in the season.
But for now, the Mets focus is in California. They’ll play three against the Dodgers before returning to the Bay Area to open a four-game set against Michael Conforto and the San Francisco Giants. The theme of the week is team.
