Yankees pounce as Mets rebound, and let's rethink MLB playoffs debate

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It was a big night for New York teams, the Dodgers’ trick didn’t work a second time and we take a look at Jayson Stark’s playoff format investigation. I’m Levi Weaver, here with Ken Rosenthal. Welcome to The Windup!

NLCS Game 2: Mets rebound to even series

Mets 7, Dodgers 3 — What if Francisco Lindor had been hitting in the bottom of the first inning last night instead of leading off the game? It’s likely the opponent wouldn’t have been the Mets; Lindor has been the team’s indisputable MVP this year. But back in the 2019-2020 offseason, reports Andy McCullough, the Dodgers did try to make Lindor a Dodger.

It’s a fascinating what-could-have-been thought exercise. Heck, it’s possible the Dodgers wouldn’t be here without Mookie Betts, whom they acquired that offseason when the Lindor deal didn’t materialize.

At any rate, in this timeline, the Mets version of Lindor snapped the Dodgers’ record-tying scoreless streak at 33 innings last night when he hit a leadoff home run. Mark Vientos added a grand slam in a five-run second inning, and it looked like the Mets were going to return the favor for L.A.’s Game 1 blowout.

Instead, it got a bit dicey late. In the eighth inning, with the score 6-3 and two runners on, Mets manager Carlos Mendoza had to call on closer Edwin Díaz for a four-out save. After an insurance run in the top of the ninth, Díaz gave up a single and a walk before striking out Mookie Betts, Teoscar Hernández and Freddie Freeman to shut it down and even the series at 1-1.

For Vientos, whose grand slam came after an intentional walk to load the bases, the “personal” moment was just the latest in what is becoming quite a lengthy list of huge Mets moments this October. This one wrested back the momentum in the series as the teams fly cross-country to Queens for a day off before Walker Buehler takes on Luis Severino in Game 3 (tomorrow at 8:08 p.m. ET, FS1).

• More NLCS: A game worthy of the Weird and Wild treatment by Jayson Stark.
• More Dodgers: Clayton Kershaw says he plans to pitch in 2025.

Ken’s Notebook: Dodgers face bullpen-game questions

From my latest column: 

LOS ANGELES – The degree of difficulty is high. The margin for error is small. The Los Angeles Dodgers pulled off a bullpen game masterfully in Game 4 of the Division Series. But their plan quickly went awry Monday in Game 2 of the National League Championship Series, and they never recovered in a 7-3 loss to the New York Mets.

Manager Dave Roberts’ choices are fair game. With a day off Tuesday, why didn’t he use high-leverage relievers early, rather than avoid them entirely? Why didn’t he pull rookie Edgardo Henriquez in the ninth after a one-out walk to Pete Alonso, with the deficit 6-3 and the top of the Dodgers’ order due to hit? Why, with his team three wins away from the World Series, did he manage with such little urgency?

All reasonable questions. Roberts revealed he was down two leverage relievers — not just lefty Alex Vesia, who is out for this series because of an injury to his side, but also righty Daniel Hudson, who is 37 and said he was available only in an emergency after reporting soreness following his 20-pitch outing in Game 1. Thus, Roberts needed nine outs or more out of rookie righty Landon Knack, who had a 3.65 ERA in 69 innings during the regular season. Knack entered in the second and proceeded to allow five runs in two innings, putting the Dodgers behind, 6-0.

The problem with any debate over Roberts’ decisions is that the Dodgers never should have been so reliant on Knack. They were in this position because their numerous pitching injuries this season left them compromised. And if Game 3 and/or 4 starter Walker Buehler and Yoshinobu Yamamoto struggle, their plans might further crumble.

The Dodgers, after winning the first game of the series, were not in nearly as desperate a spot as they were when facing elimination by the San Diego Padres in Game 4 of the DS. Vesia and Hudson both pitched that night, and Roberts only used Knack in the ninth with an 8-0 lead. The team’s scoreless streak eventually reached 33 innings, tying a postseason record. But to expect continued perfection from every reliever was unrealistic. Ryan Brasier, the opener, had three balls hit 103.6 mph or harder off him in the first inning, including Francisco Lindor’s leadoff homer.

What if Roberts had gone to say, Banda in the second, Kopech in the third, stacking high-leverage relievers one after another and avoiding Knack for as long as possible?  The Dodgers perhaps could have kept the score closer, but in Roberts’ view, he had to use Knack eventually. Knack, a second-round pick out of East Tennessee State in 2020, might one day be a mid-rotation starter. But your classic postseason linchpin, he isn’t right now.

More here.

ALCS Game 1: Yankees take 1-0 lead in Bronx

Yankees 5, Guardians 2 — One thing about having a lights-out bullpen as your biggest weapon: You can’t protect a lead if you never have one. That was the case for the Guardians last night, who trailed from the third inning onward.

But the last four runs did score with a reliever on the mound. After starter Alex Cobb loaded the bases with three walks in the third inning, reliever Joey Cantillo allowed the second and third runs to score on wild pitches (sandwiching a walk between them).

Cantillo’s gaffes weren’t the difference in the game, though. The Yankees scored again in the fourth and seventh innings (the latter of which came on the latest Giancarlo Stanton home run). Those two runs, paired with Soto’s solo shot in the third, would have been enough to overcome the single runs that Cleveland scored in the sixth and eighth.

So maybe I’m wrong. Maybe sometimes the best way to protect a lead is preemptively.

Either way, it didn’t happen. The Guardians’ vaunted pitching staff wasn’t able to get the job done against a Yankees lineup that suddenly looks a lot deeper with Anthony Rizzo — who returned to action after being sidelined with two broken fingers — hitting in the No. 8 spot.

Meanwhile, the Yankees got a stellar performance from Carlos Rodón, and they take a 1-0 lead into tomorrow’s matchup between Gerrit Cole and Tanner Bibee (7:38 p.m. ET, TBS).

Debates: Let’s talk about the playoff format

We linked to Jayson Stark’s story about the playoff format in yesterday’s Windup, but I wanted to revisit it today, when we have a little more space, because it’s a topic that comes up a lot!

The question, put simply, is this: Is this the fairest format, or would some slight tweaks make it more “fair”?

By fair, of course, the assumption is that the fairest thing would be for the teams with the best regular-season records to have the best chance of playing in the World Series. That’s not to say the deck should be stacked heavily in favor of those teams, but as Stark points out, both the NBA and NHL — neither of which feature byes — see their top-rated teams win their first matchups at a higher rate than MLB.

But here’s what I appreciate about Stark: He’s always going to dig one layer deeper. And he found that even before the new format, teams with the best records weren’t exactly winning at an overwhelming rate:

• 1998-2011 (no wild-card round): 51.5 percent
• 2012-21* (one-game wild-card round): 54.1 percent
• 2022-24 (current format): 50 percent.

*2020 excluded

It’s only been three years, so we’ll need to see a few more years before we can say that it’s a disadvantage to have a bye (three out of the four teams with a bye advanced this year, by the way).

You should definitely read Stark’s column; he examines the topic from about every angle you can imagine, and includes numbers at every step of the way.

But if you want my opinion? I think baseball is just a high-variance sport. Basketball doesn’t have five different point guards playing every fifth day, but that’s how starting pitchers work. Hockey doesn’t require defensemen to take as many shots as the center, but that’s how batting orders function.

It’s one reason that baseball is the only sport to play triple-digit regular-season schedules. It takes a huge sample size to truly determine the best team. Even a seven-game series can be a crapshoot.

As Stark concludes: “If you don’t want upsets, then don’t have playoffs.”

Handshakes and High Fives

(Top photo: Keith Birmingham/MediaNews Group/Pasadena Star-News via Getty Images)