Mets bullpen not to be outdone by starting rotation in NLCS
NEW YORK -- To fully appreciate what the Mets bullpen is doing right now, raw stats are not enough.
Sure, four Mets relievers combined for 3 1/3 scoreless innings Sunday night to preserve a 4-1 win and put the Mets up in the NLCS, 2-0.
But it is the consistency manager Terry Collins has coaxed from this unit—an amagalmation of starters-turned-relievers, starters getting between-starts work in, and relievers forced to embrace new roles—that is truly astounding.
Everyone is in unfamiliar territory. Tyler Clippard was in Oakland until July. Addison Reed was in Arizona until August. Jeurys Familia, the closer, began the year as a setup man. Lefty specialist Jon Niese had been starter for his entire career until the final week of the regular season. Bartolo Colon made a total of six relief appearances in his 18-year career before this season. Noah Syndergaard, Sunday night's starter, was Thursday night's seventh inning guy.
Only one thing is certain from game to game: it's all been working.
“I wasn't a pitcher, so I was never one that thought to have a particular role outside of the guy pitching the 9th inning was that big,” Collins said Sunday night at his postgame presser. “But at this level, it is big. Guys want to know when they're going to be used. Our guys have done a great job. But they're all caught up in it right now. They're all caught up in the success of what's going on.”
The pathway from starter to 27th out was a bit more conventional Sunday night, with Reed pitching the seventh, Clippard the eighth and Familia the ninth inning. Even that was fraught with some level of concern, since the bullpen appearances from guys like Syndergaard and Colon throughout the NLDS meant that Clippard and Reed simply hadn't worked that much.
“You make it work because it's October,” Clippard said, standing in front of his locker following the game. “I think that's what it comes down to. You realize that all hands on deck every single day. And each situation that each guy is given, they want to be out there, you're excited, you want to contribute.”
That's what Jon Niese did, striking out Rizzo in the sixth to end a Cubs threat. Niese is facing an unspecified death in the family, but Clippard said that might've worked to Niese's advantage.
“Baseball's a great outlet when things like that happen to you personally,” Clippard said. “In a situation like this, it's a first for a lot of us, pitching in an NLCS, and the energy around these games, you have no choice but to be excited and be focused on the task at hand.”
Still, while clearly happy for his teammates, Clippard acknowledged that the time off wasn't his preference, all things being equal. Whatever his physical condition, “I like to pitch”. When Colon soaks up 5 1/3 relief innings in the playoffs, those opportunities are fewer.
“We went through a lot of scenarios that might occur today, and it's amazing how many times Bartolo's name is brought up,” Collins said prior to the NLCS. “Well, you know what, here's the situation. Maybe -- oh, we can use Bartolo there. Well, you know what, if all of a sudden Matt comes up and he maybe can't pitch the next start, geez, we've got Bartolo and we've got Niese.”
So for Clippard to come in and shut the Cubs down in the eighth inning Sunday night is impressive, and it mattered. It kept the Mets from having to go to Steven Matz, a starter who'd never relieved and who Collins said he would've used against Anthony Rizzo if Rizzo had batted in the eighth. And it made the ninth easier for Familia, the automatic out at the back end of this Mets bullpen.
Familia pitched 1 1/3 innings on Saturday night to secure the Game 1 win, two days after throwing two full innings Thursday night to vanquish the Dodgers in NLDS Game 5. But he brushed aside any question about his availability Sunday night in a pregame interview, and the Cubs didn't really challenge him, getting only an infield hit on a ninth inning grounder to first base when Familia failed to cover.
In the postseason, Familia's now faced 28 hitters, or the equivalent of a full game plus one. He's retired 25 of the 28.
It made a winner of Syndergaard, and in that particular way that everything is coming up Mets these days, it all seems to come full circle with the young righty who routinely hits three digits on the radar gun. Starters are relieving, and Collins believes it's leading to increased confidence as they return to the mound for starts.
“I think going into that game at Dodger Stadium, that was a big game for us,” Collins said of Syndergaard. “And to have him at his age and the fact that he's never pitched out of the bullpen, just walk in there and pound that strike zone was big for us. I think coming in tonight, he's got all the confidence in the world, and he should.”
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