NEW YORK — Harrison Bader grinned Sunday afternoon as the New York Mets prepared to conclude one of the most eventful road trips in baseball history.
“We’re actually having the most fun we’ve ever had, for being two weeks on the road,” Bader said. “I think we love it. It’s a traveling circus, if you will.”
The circus finally returns home Tuesday afternoon, when the Mets host the Philadelphia Phillies in Game 3 of a National League Division Series.
Left-hander Sean Manaea (12-6, 3.47 ERA in 2024 regular season) is slated to start for the Mets against right-hander Aaron Nola (14-8, 3.57 ERA).
The Phillies evened the best-of-five series Sunday when Nick Castellanos’ walk-off RBI single in the ninth inning capped a wild 7-6 victory.
The back-and-forth marathon provided a neat summation of the last two weeks for the Mets, who have traveled more than 2,500 air miles, dealt with the effects of extreme weather and extended their season by winning two of the most dramatic games in team history since defeating the Phillies in the regular-season home finale on Sept. 22.
The Mets clinched a wild-card berth Sept. 30 after Francisco Lindor hit the go-ahead homer in the ninth inning of an 8-7 win over the Atlanta Braves in the opener of a doubleheader, necessitated when Hurricane Helene forced the postponement of the final two games of a series against the Braves on Sept. 25-26.
The Mets were down to their final two outs in an NL wild-card series against the Brewers last Thursday. Then Pete Alonso hit a go-ahead three-run homer against closer Devin Williams to spark a four-run outburst in a 4-2 win.
In the NLDS opener Saturday, New York had one hit through seven innings against Zack Wheeler before scoring six times in the final two innings of a 6-2 win. In Game 2, the Mets opened a 3-0 lead, went ahead 4-3 on Brandon Nimmo’s homer in the seventh and tied the game in the ninth on Mark Vientos’ second two-run homer before Castellanos’ game-winning hit.
“It’s incredible — you could write a book, you could make a movie,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said Monday afternoon. “We’ve been on the good side and now the bad side. Incredible week.”
The resilient comeback Sunday provided a reminder that the Phillies are no strangers to navigating the October rollercoaster. They made the World Series as the NL’s sixth seed in 2022 and squandered a 3-2 lead in the NLCS last year, when the sixth-seeded Arizona Diamondbacks won Games 6 and 7 in Philadelphia.
The Phillies were 10 outs away from falling into a 2-0 hole Sunday when their star veterans keyed the comeback. Trea Turner singled off Luis Severino before Bryce Harper and Castellanos hit back-to-back home runs.
“I feel at times you don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel and then stuff starts to happen, you see some things go your way and then you’re in the driver’s seat,” Turner said. “And the next thing you know, it’s taken from you again.”
The Phillies rallied against Mets closer Edwin Diaz in the eighth. With one out, Harper walked and Castellanos singled before Bryson Stott laced the go-ahead two-run triple.
After Vientos’ game-tying two-run shot, the Phillies mounted one more two-out rally in the ninth, when Turner and Harper walked against Tylor Megill to bring up Castellanos.
“(The Mets have) shown already in the postseason that they’re going to battle back,” Turner said. “There’s no quit in there and there’s no quit in our dugout as well.”
Manaea didn’t factor into the decision in Game 2 of the wild-card series last Wednesday, when he gave up two runs over five innings in the Mets’ 5-3 loss. He is 0-3 with a 10.66 ERA in four career playoff games (three starts).
Nola last pitched Sept. 29 and allowed three runs over five innings to earn the win as the Phillies beat the Washington Nationals, 6-3. He is 5-3 with a 3.70 ERA in nine career playoff starts.
Manaea is 2-2 with a 5.19 ERA in six career games (four starts) against the Phillies, including 1-1 with a 5.40 ERA in three starts this season. Nola is 10-9 with a 3.46 ERA in 28 starts against the Mets, including 1-1 with a 4.05 ERA in two starts this season.
–Jerry Beach, Field Level Media