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One thing the 2015 Mets have never stopped doing is surprising us. For good and for bad, it’s been a tough team to predict and last night’s nail-biter of a finale was no exception. The Mets defied expectations again and again by striking first against Zack Greinke, surviving with a struggling Jacob deGrom, and by coaxing out a road win against a team with a stacked pitching staff and a deep lineup.
At the middle of it all was the king of the unpredictable, Daniel Murphy. I took some flak after the series opener for saying he, as a lefty with relatively little power, was one of the last Mets I’d expect to hit a homer off of Clayton Kershaw. I was so very, very wrong, not about Murphy’s strengths and weaknesses as a hitter, but because I forgot that Murphy’s stock in trade is the art of astonishment.
I’ll remember Game 5 for the stunned, panicked looks on the faces of the Dodgers infielders as they realized Murphy was on third base instead of second. It’ll be the consternation on Greinke’s face as Murphy – he of the career-high 14 home runs all season – took him deep, for a lead they would never relinquish.
I won’t remember the nervous ticks, muttered curses, or frustrated groans that filled the gaps between Murphy’s eye-openers. They’re already starting to fade. There were some early missed scoring opportunities. Definitely a parade’s worth of baserunners by deGrom, another surprise that felt utterly unsurprising. The act of watching a playoff game is filled with so much tension, bordering on hostility, but at the end of it all, that’s washed away in a champagne shower. What’s left is joy, anticipation, and plenty of “Wow,” and, “I didn’t see that one coming.”
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from Metsblog http://ift.tt/1RfGnwu
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