No, that’s not a typo in the headline. Over at Baseball Prospectus, Sam Miller recaps a Mets victory in Game Two of the NLCS by using a little humor. Well, Cubs fans may not be in the mood to laugh, but perhaps assuming a Game Six victory is something you do want to hear about…
Seven months ago, Noah Syndergaard was the kid in spring training whose lunch plate two veteran teammates felt comfortable tipping into the garbage. Nobody touches his lunch now.
On Sunday, he had the Cubs for lunch, with extra mustard (and a lot of cheese), shutting down Chicago’s powerful lineup for 5 2/3 innings—scoreless, those 5 2/3, until the last batter Syndergaard faced. Against one Cub after the other, he muscled high-90s fastballs safely past, even in dead-red fastball counts. Or he would embarrass them with a low-90s changeup, the Syndergaard equivalent of “I forgot to tell you, I’m not left-handed.”
The Mets would go on to beat the Cubs 4-1 in Game Two of the NLCS, and now lead the series two games to one.
“Gosh, this kid is something special,” David Wright gushed after the outing (and after Syndergaard’s very impressive post-lunch-dump season). “Now we’re in the driver’s seat: Worst case, we just need to pick off one game on the road, then obviously lose to Jake Arrieta in Game Six, and it’ll come down to JGrom in the seventh. The way Grommy’s been throwing, I like our chances.”
To read the entire article free at Baseball Prospectus, click here.
Lead photo courtesy of Anthony Gruppuso-USA TODAY Sports