NEW YORK — The Mets have magic. The Dodgers have the upper hand.
The Mets have an MVP candidate. The Dodgers have an MVP.
There’s something crazy going on with the Mets. The Dodgers are OMG.
The rift between the two teams could not have been more evident Thursday night as the Dodgers won 10-2 to take a commanding 3-1 lead in the National League Championship Series. Los Angeles won all three games by at least eight points. Game 4 was the most obvious one, as Shohei Ohtani and Mookie Betts combined for two home runs, five hits, five RBIs, three walks, and seven runs, turning a lively Citi Field into a library.
“It was fun to watch him perform so well, obviously with me on base,” Ohtani said of Betts. “So he looks really good and solid. My job at that point is to make sure Mookie scores what he really hits.”
Ohtani and Betts make it seem inevitable that all purple grizzly trout in the tri-state area will soon go into hibernation. Ohtani sucked the air out of the stadium before fans took their seats. He smashed the leadoff home run with the second pitch from veteran Jose Quintana’s left hand, ending the run of no one hitting base. The home run ended Ohtani’s 22-game no-hitter streak before starting the postseason without a runner on base. The Mets appeared to choose to avoid further damage from the Japanese phenom, with Ohtani walking on base in three of his next four at-bats.
“Freddie (Freeman) talked me into coming to the party early and not late,” Ohtani said. “So this time I was able to do it in my first at-bat.”
Betts added, “It’s going to be difficult to have him walk all the time.”
Yeah, no kidding, especially when the guy batting behind you is this fixed. After starting the postseason hitless in his first nine at-bats, Betts returned to superstardom. He went 4-for-6 with four RBIs, a playoff career high, and hit a huge two-run shot into the left field seats in the sixth inning (his third home run of the postseason). The Mets were now completely out of the game. Betts’ biggest hit of the night came right after the Mets made a pitching change, using his clutch genes to power the Dodgers in Game 4.
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Betts currently has seven career home runs in the playoffs, making him the third Dodgers player to have at least four hits and four RBIs in a postseason game, joining Chris Taylor and Steve Garvey.
“It’s really tough for a starting pitcher,” said Freeman, who watched Game 4 from the dugout to rest a sprained ankle. “Right out of the gate, you’re going to be playing against Hall of Famers. It’s great to see them swinging the bat the way they are. It’s fun to hit behind them.”
Like Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar or Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal, Los Angeles’ newest legendary tandem was relentless against the Mets’ pitchers in Game 4. Ohtani relied on patience to draw walks and Betts relied on timely hits to power Quintana, who started with five earned runs in just 3.1 innings. The fact that Ohtani, Betts and the rest of the Dodgers scored 10 points in Freeman’s absence on Thursday is a testament to how complete the offense is right now.
The Dodgers spent more than $1 billion this offseason for this very reason. In other words, the resilient Mets overwhelmed, exhausted, and suffocated their opponents to the point where the idea of a turnaround became incontrovertible. The Dodgers outscored the Mets 30-9 in the first four games of the National League CS.
“You have to give them credit because they have a really good lineup and can do a lot of different things,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said. “This is a team that controls the strike zone like any other team in the league. Not only do they do that, but when they force it into the zone, they can do some damage. And they did it. They did it again today. ”
As players and coaches often say, everything is bigger this time of year. So dealing with the rapidly changing landscape and added media responsibilities of the postseason requires yet another level of patience and confidence.
Ohtani, experiencing the playoffs for the first time in his seven-year major league career, ran around the clubhouse like a maniac after the Dodgers won Game 4. He sat in a chair in his locker, quickly wiping his jet-black hair with a towel, and trotted back to the bathroom, then hurried back to his locker to get his belongings. He had a backpack slung over his shoulder, a hat tipped backwards, and headphones in his hand. He then rushed out of the clubhouse behind the MLB staff and into the press conference room, talking about the night he stepped up to bat and how the Dodgers were one win away from the World Series.
As for Betts, playing in his eighth career postseason, he was playing at a slower pace. As he walked through the Citi Field tunnel to sit in front of countless cameras and reporters, he stopped to hug his family and give a lucky fan a fist bump as they exited the stadium. If Betts seemed calm after the fight, that’s because he spent the rest of his free time swinging in the cage. Freeman joked that if cage work is working so well for Betts, the first baseman might try that approach soon.
“A lot of things went right, a lot of things didn’t go right, and some things went right,” Betts said of his preparation. “Today went well. But tomorrow is a new day. I’ll come to work and try to find that same feeling.”
Things didn’t go so well for the Queen’s team. The reason why the Mets are in trouble and facing the worst-case scenario of losing the rest of the series is because they didn’t take advantage of their chances on Thursday. When I couldn’t score any runs with no outs and bases loaded in the 6th inning, I was heartbroken. And I was embarrassed by the eighth inning, when the Dodgers scored extra runs and the stadium was nearly empty with six outs remaining.
The Dodgers, playoff veterans, did something like shove the school’s freshmen into their lockers. It’s hard to see the Mets coming out of Citi Field with still a game left.
Disha Tosar is an MLB reporter for FOX Sports. She previously covered the Mets as a beat reporter for the New York Daily News. The daughter of Indian immigrants, Disha grew up on Long Island and currently lives in Queens. Follow her on Twitter @DeeshaTosar.
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