As the old baseball axiom goes, “momentum is the next day’s starting pitcher.” In a world where momentum does exist and has a real and tangible impact on a series of baseball games, the Los Angeles Dodgers probably would’ve continued to bop the New York Mets upside their collective heads in Game 2 after opening up this season’s NLCS with a dominant 9-0 win. Instead, the New York Mets (and Francisco Lindor in particular) immediately set about to prove that momentum is a thing of fiction.
Lindor’s leadoff shot got the Mets going on the right track and also served as a bad omen for the Dodgers on their bullpen day. Ryan Brasier finished that first inning and gave way to Landon Knack and this is where the game really and truly changed. With two outs, the Mets having already pushed their lead to two runs and first base open, Dodgers manager Brian Roberts made the perfectly reasonable decision to walk Lindor.
However, one thing that is real and tangible in baseball is pettiness. So when Mark Vientos realized that Francisco Lindor was getting walked so that the Dodgers and Landon Knack would take their chances with him, it was as if you could hear Michael Jordan from The Last Dance saying “I took it personal,” instead of Vientos himself (which he did after the game). It may not have been immediate and it may have taken place over the course of nine, agonizingly long playoff baseball pitches but eventually, Vientos got his moment to let the Dodgers know just how personal he took that intentional walk call.
If any team can respect taking an intentional walk personally, it’s the Dodgers. After all, this led to one of the funnier moments of the 2022 season when the Dodgers were in Chicago to take on Tony La Russa’s Chicago White Sox. As the White Sox were in the early throes of their ongoing collapse into chaos, La Russa made an incredibly mystifying decision to walk then-Dodgers shortstop Trea Turner on a 1-2 count. That brought Max Muncy to the plate and it did not end well for La Russa at all. After the game, Muncy stated that the IBB “kind of gave me something” and sometimes, that little something is all you need.
Fast forward to Game 2 of the 2024 NLCS and this time, the Dodgers were the one giving their opponent that little something to push them over the edge. Again, Dave Roberts didn’t make a horrible call with that intentional walk in that situation. It also wasn’t the be-all/end-all of this game as well, as the Dodgers certainly had their opportunities to turn the tide in this one. Max Muncy himself put the Dodgers on the board with a solo shot in the fifth inning to make it 6-1 and then they scored a pair of runs in the next frame to get within three runs.
With that being said, this was the moment for the Dodgers to really turn the game on its head and they were unable to do so — even with a potential rally snake defecting from Arizona and joining the Dodgers in their dugout. Usually, starting off an inning against a lineup the caliber of Los Angeles’s by loading up the bases with nobody out is a recipe for disaster — especially when it’s the third time through the order as it was for Sean Manaea. It was up to Phil Maton to find a way out of the volatile situation.
Sure enough, Maton was able to get out of it by getting a scuffling Will Smith to pop out and then getting Enrique Hernández to ground into a massive inning-ending double play in order to make sure that the Mets were still up by three once the smoke cleared. That’s why the aforementioned “pair of runs” ended up being underwhelming. Los Angeles needed a lot more at the time and they were unable to get it.
From then on out, the Mets held serve as their bullpen came in and made the lead stick. Ryne Stanek got the next four outs and then Edwin Díaz got the final four outs in order to ensure that the series would head to New York tied at a game apiece. So again, this game didn’t ultimately come down to the decision to walk Francisco Lindor in order to face Mark Vientos. Baseball is a game of 27 outs and one thing about Postseason baseball is that each and every one of those 27 outs will be very hard to come by and rarely will you see a team simply cruise to the finish. They’ve got to earn all 27 of those outs and the Mets certainly did in order to even up the series.
With that being said, Mark Vientos hitting that grand slam is part of what makes Postseason baseball so much fun to watch. Sometimes all these guys need is whatever spark is available to make something happen and Vientos found the spark he needed to help push the Mets to victory. Good luck trying to figure out where the net spark is going to come from because it could come from any and everywhere with the way this Postseason has gone so far.
