GRINDING IT OUT
Up against aces again, Mets hatch patient game plan
THE Cubs have aces, too. And the Mets have their work cut out for them in spades. First the Mets had to get past the Dodgers’ Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke in the NLDS and now it’s the Cubs with Jon Lester and Jake Arrieta in the NLCS..
One, lefty, one righty, again. It’s a daunting task.
How daunting? Terry Collins let the world know Saturday night before Game 1 of the NLCS at Citi Field.
And this is Terry being Terry, much like Manny being Manny or Murphy being Murphy.
“The mentality is ‘Oh, sh, we’ve got to do it again,’’ the Mets manager said of beating the Cubs after beating the Dodgers.
Yep, that is the mentality, the “Oh, bleep’’ mentality.
The Mets have their work cut out for them and they know it. Can this team that had trouble scoring runs before Yoenis Cespedes take care of business in this sevengame series?
Can the Mets find a way? Can their young aces match up with these veteran aces?
That’s what makes this such a fascinating series.
Arrieta wasn’t at his best in the NLDS against the Cardinals, but here’s what he did during the regular season. It is monstrous:
Arrieta was 226, the most wins by a Cubs pitcher since Fergie Jenkins went 2413 in 1971 — two years after the Mets and Cubs last played in a vital series. He ended the season with 20 straight quality starts and then shut out the Pirates in the wildcard game.
There’s more, much more. Arrieta went 110 with a 0.41 ERA in his final 12 regularseason starts.
That is what the Mets have to look forward to on Sunday.
On Saturday night, it was the veteran Lester at chilly Citi Field.
The Mets’ approach against both pitchers was going to be to try to go against the grain a bit. St. Louis did that in the NLDS and had some success. The Cardinals made a concentrated effort to swing at balls in the strike zone and that meant taking some strikes that completely fooled them, but the goal was to only swing at strikes, be patient and make Arrieta work and get his pitch count up.
When Arrieta is at his best, he gets batters swinging at pitches out of the zone. They are completely fooled.
In other words, those batters create their own strikes, digging a deeper hole for themselves. Once you do that against Arrieta, the righty has the upper hand.
Collins allotted that Lester and Arrieta are different than Kershaw and Greinke. And that plays into the Mets’ approach.
That approach is in the hands of hitting coach Kevin Long, who has done a terrific job after coming over from the Yankees.
“Kevin’s done a great job of coming up with a game plan,’’ Collins said. “But we have to execute it. We’ve got to work very, very hard to grind out atbats and continue to get Jon to throw a pitch that we can handle, same with Jake. ’’ It’s time to execute. Long and assistant Pat Roessler, who also came over from the Yankees, really have their work cut out for them.
The biggest challenge against Arrieta is his location has been so spot on, Collins said.
“His stuff has always been really good,’’ Collins said. “His location has been off the charts. His hard cutter has been eating up lefthanded batters.’’
This is a challenge, but that is what the postseason is all about. You have to beat the best to advance and the Mets really have to beat the best.