Neil Miller/TheNYExtra.com 2024
Francisco Lindor who is quickly becoming the best baseball player in this town, crushed a grand slam homer to lead the Mets to 4-1 win over the Phillies to take the division series 3 games to one sending the Mets to The National League Championship Series.
Lindor is a special player who combines a great bat with the best shortstop glove in the sport. In the last 2 or 3 weeks, he has gotten clutch hit after clutch hit. From a pitching perspective, the Mets got a solid 5 innings from Jose Quintana and great relief work from David Peterson that kept the hard hitting Phils in check.
When you think about it, the Mets have tagged some of the best closers in the sport with come from behind victories as they tagged Raisel Iglesias, Devin Williams and Jeff Hoffman with losses. All of those hurlers have an All-Star appearance on their resume. And this Met team got wins off each of those pitchers.
Think about this for a moment–In June The Mets were 11 games under 500 and now they are in the sports Final Four meaning if they win the next series, they will be in The World Series. That is mind boggling but hardly a secret. This team has great clubhouse chemistry and really care about each other. And they pull for each other even if the guy winning the game is fighting for playing time with the guy who has taken away his playing time.
It was a wild celebration at Citi as the Mets gave their fans the first celebration night in the 15-year life of CitiField. And when you looked at the faces in the crowd, it was a combination of a tear in their eyes and a Kool-Aid grin. That is the emotion that OMG has brought to this fan base much in the same way You Gotta Believe did it for Met fans back in 1973.
It is a night these fans will remember forever and Brandon Nimmo said it best when he replied, “They are the greatest fans in the world and deserved this night as much as we did.” Now there is still more work to do as the Mets will face a tough opponent in this upcoming NLCS as both the Dodgers and Padres have a star-laden roster.
But so do the Mets and on this night they sent a team packing many thought would beat the Mets. But like they did many times this year, The Mets refused to read that memo and got the job done.
