Most fans from a sold-out crowd of 43,882 had filed out of Citi Field by the eighth inning Thursday night, the Dodgers pulling away in the final innings of a 10-2 National League Championship Series Game 4 victory over the New York Mets that moved them to within one win of the World Series.
But only two innings earlier, the joint was jumping, the chants of “Let’s go, Mets!” grew louder and louder, and the Mets, who had staged one dramatic comeback after another this month, were one big swing away from making it a one-run game.
Three batters later, the stadium went so quiet you could hear Grimace, the team’s unofficial mascot, crying in his purple fur, the Mets unable to put a dent in the nearly impenetrable back end of the Dodgers’ bullpen despite loading the bases with no outs.
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“Oh yeah,” reliever Evan Phillips said, when asked if he noticed how quickly Citi Field went silent. “I think that was really deflating for them. For us to be able to stop that kind of momentum, even with the five-run lead, was huge.”
Phillips, who has not given up a run in 14⅓ innings over 11 playoff appearances dating to 2021, replaced starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto with one out and a runner on first in the bottom of the fifth and the Dodgers leading 5-2.
The right-hander, making his first NLCS appearance, struck out Mark Vientos, who had homered off Yamamoto in the first, with a 97-mph fastball and got Pete Alonso to ground into an inning-ending forceout.
The Dodgers pushed the lead to 7-2 in the sixth on Mookie Betts’ two-run homer, but the Mets threatened to take a huge chunk out of that cushion when Brandon Nimmo and Starling Marte singled and J.D. Martinez walked to open the bottom of the sixth.
Pitching coach Mark Prior came to the mound to chat with Phillips, who probably didn’t need to be reminded of the two grand slams the Mets hit this postseason, one by Francisco Lindor in the division series-clinching win over Philadelphia, the other by Vientos in New York’s Game 2 win over the Dodgers.
“Mark coming out there gave me a second to just reset and reshift my focus back to what I need to do, which is execute pitches and get guys out,” Phillips said. “He didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know, because we work really hard to have a good plan.
“The biggest thing was there were contact guys coming up, guys who it’s really hard to get swing-and-miss against, so just try to execute good pitches and hopefully come down on the right side of it.”
Phillips jumped ahead of Jose Iglesias with two strikes and the Mets second baseman whiffed at a 96-mph, up-and-away fastball.
Pinch-hitter Jeff McNeil fouled off four pitches before taking an 85-mph sweeper below the zone for a ball. Phillips then came up and in with a 95-mph sinker, and McNeil flied out to shallow center field, Nimmo holding at third.
With Phillips’ pitch count at 34, manager Dave Roberts summoned right-hander Blake Treinen to face pinch-hitter Jesse Winker, who put a charge into a 95-mph fastball and sent a line drive to the warning track in right field, where Betts made the inning-ending catch.
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“It sounded pretty loud, but I think I missed the barrel just enough,” Treinen said. “I think the biggest thing in those situations is, don’t try to think about the what-ifs and just focus on who’s in the box. Try to execute your pitches.
“Certainly, I got away with one tonight against Winker. The bases were loaded, it was a 7-2 game, and if he had gotten into that one even better, it could have been a 7-6 game. But it wasn’t. I’m grateful we were able to put up a zero.”
Treinen, who missed most of the last two seasons because of shoulder injuries, threw a scoreless seventh to push his scoreless streak to 21⅓ innings dating to Aug. 24, 15⅓ innings over his last 15 regular-season games and six scoreless innings in five playoff games.
“Sounds like Blake Treinen, doesn’t it?” Phillips said. “It’s really great to see him kind of back to normal form. He’s someone that I respect a lot. He’s been through a tough couple years of injuries and trying to bounce back from that. And I think this year you’re starting to see, you know, a lot of those old feels come back for him.”
Phillips, Treinen and Michael Kopech have thrown most of the high-leverage innings, but the bullpen as a whole has given up just 12 earned runs in 45 innings of nine playoff games for a 2.40 earned-run average. Take away the five runs starter Landon Knack gave up in two relief innings in the Game 2 loss, and the bullpen ERA would be 1.47.
“The culture in the ‘pen is they just pitch each other up,” Roberts said. “Regardless of when they get the baseball, they’re ready when called upon, which is huge.”
A relief corps that also has gotten significant contributions from left-handers Alex Vesia and Anthony Banda and right-handers Daniel Hudson and Ryan Brasier has helped move the Dodgers to the brink of their 22nd World Series and fourth in eight seasons.
“What I love most about our group down there is we’re all in it together,” Phillips said. “It’s been really fun to watch each guy kind of have their piece in this postseason, handing off to one guy after another, in any situation. Our mentality is that when the phone rings, we just do our job and get outs.”
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
