Maggie Wiggin, MetsBlog.com
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The Mets brought the show home for Citi Field’s first-ever World Series game on Friday night and they’ve officially made it a fair fight. 48 hours after a pair of games that can only be described as demoralizing, they won Game 3 in decisive and dominant fashion.
It didn’t start out that way, though. For the first two innings, it looked like classic Royals Devil Magic as every ball found a hole, helped along by some key non-strike calls I’ll charitably call “borderline.” Syndergaard looked sharp from the very beginning, and even his high-and-tight message pitch to Escobar was perfectly placed.
The three runs charged to Syndergaard came on just one solid hit and a whole lot of sloppy defense, and — with the way it has been going for the Royals — the crowd fell silent, expecting more of the same. But, Syndergaard shut it down. Except for a blip in the sixth, when he loaded the bases on some close calls (and escaped unscathed), he managed something the two experienced aces could not: he stopped Kansas City’s bats. He even struck out six of the seemingly unstrike-out-able. Take note, Mets pitchers, it can be done.
The biggest hero of the night was the one we’ve been waiting for all postseason: David Wright. He started the night with a game-changing two-run shot to put the Mets ahead of the Royals, 2-1, igniting the crowd and reminding us all that we were home now and that we weren’t going down quietly. Then, when the Mets were sitting on a deceptively-thin three-run lead, Wright cracked a bases-loaded single to stretch the margin to five, enough to allow fans to breathe easy and enjoy a long-awaited victory.
The runner-up of the night would have to be Juan Uribe, who entered his first postseason game since 2010 (and his first game of any kind since September) to a roar from the crowd. Already a folk hero in these parts, fans were just happy to have him back on the roster and had moderate expectations for his first at-bat after such a long layoff, a pinch-hit appearance with runners on in the sixth inning. Morales’s pitch was an awful hanging curve, but Uribe was on it and drove in a much-needed insurance run. It’s good to have him back.
The Mets have a ways to go, including at least one necessary victory back in Kansas City if they’re going to end their 29-year championship drought. But after a close heart-breaker and an embarrassing drubbing, they changed the narrative of the juggernaut-Royals and reminded the world that they earned the opportunity to win a World Series title. They gave the home crowd (some of whom paid hundreds of dollars just to stand in the building) something to remember. And they’re not backing down.
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