By Jake Kaplan / The Philadelphia Inquirer
NEW YORK—The list of pitchers Daniel Murphy has tagged for home runs this postseason is similar to the National League (NL) Cy Young ballots submitted two weeks ago.
Murphy, hero of these playoffs for the New York Mets, enhanced his résumé once again on a cold Sunday night with a homer off the mighty Jake Arrieta. The long ball, a two-run shot, set the tone early at Citi Field, where the Mets beat the Chicago Cubs, 4-1, to take a two-games-to-none lead in the National League Championship Series.
The series shifts to Chicago and Wrigley Field for the next three games. Jacob deGrom, the Mets’ starter for Games One and Five of the NL division series, will start opposite the Cubs’ Kyle Hendricks in Game Three on Tuesday. Steven Matz and Chicago’s Jason Hammel await for Game Four.
On consecutive nights, the Mets defeated Jon Lester, Chicago’s $155-million left-hander, and Arrieta, whose inconceivable 0.75 ERA after the all-star break was the best in major-league history. Murphy was a key reason. The 30-year-old second baseman enters Game Three with a homer in four consecutive playoff games and a franchise-record five for the postseason.
“He’s about as locked in as I’ve seen a hitter, and he’s carried that out now for…seven games,” Mets teammate David Wright said. “That’s quite a feat, especially in the playoffs against this pitching.”
Murphy, a soon-to-be free agent who set a career high with just 14 home runs in the regular season, tied Mike Piazza for the Mets franchise record for career postseason homers in seven games. Four of them came against the three best pitchers in baseball this season: Clayton Kershaw (twice), Zack Greinke and Arrieta. The other came off Lester, a three-time all-star who has twice finished among the top 4 in Cy Young Award voting.
“I definitely am seeing the ball well right now,” Murphy said, perhaps the understatement of the night.
Murphy’s latest heroics gave the Mets a 3-0 first-inning lead. Curtis Granderson opened the frame with a single before the slumping Wright drove him in with a double. Murphy quickly fell behind Arrieta, no balls and two strikes, before watching a fastball miss for a ball. He then lofted a curveball that was down in the strike zone, tucking it just inside the right-field foul pole.
When Murphy stepped to the plate in the third inning with Granderson on second base, the Cubs intentionally walked the postseason’s hottest home-run hitter. Granderson, who had stolen second, swiped third and scored on Yoenis Cespedes’s infield single. The next 16 Mets batters were retired until Murphy—who else?—lined a two-out single in the eighth.
“The ambush early got us,” Cubs Manager Joe Maddon said.
It was Arrieta’s second straight outing in which he surrendered four earned runs, the same number he allowed over his previous 13 starts spanning 97 1/3 innings, including his dominant complete-game shutout in the wild-card game. The 29-year-old right-hander and Cy Young candidate lasted only five innings on Sunday, his quickest exit since June 16.
Noah Syndergaard, the Mets’ starter, lasted only two-thirds of an inning longer than Arrieta but was dominant for all but one of his frames. The hard-throwing rookie righthander allowed only one run on three hits, the last a run-scoring double by Kris Bryant.
Syndergaard recorded nine strikeouts, three against Kyle Schwarber, and walked only one. Granderson, his right fielder, provided an assist by robbing Chris Coghlan of a home run with an impressive catch in the second.
Jon Niese, Addison Reed and Tyler Clippard bridged the gap to Jeurys Familia, the Mets’ reliable workhorse closer, who converted his fourth save of the playoffs.
With deGrom, Matz and Matt Harvey in line to pitch the next three games in Chicago, if necessary, the Mets find themselves in a more than favorable position.
“We pretty much haven’t hid the fact that we think we have pretty good pitching,” Mets Manager Terry Collins said. “They’re young, they’re inexperienced, they don’t have the credentials that Kershaw and Greinke and Lester and Arrieta have, but they’re going to be good pitchers…. We think we can stack up with anybody.”
Image credits: AP