New York Mets: Noah Syndergaard Is Ready For The Playoff Challenge
All you can ask for at this point in the season is for a chance to have your best ready to face their best in your home ballpark. Fighting adversity throughout the season, the New York Mets made it this far……Noah Syndergaard will get the start.
It hasn’t been easy for the New York Mets this year. Like so many other teams, it’s been a long and difficult journey through six months of adversity. And yet here they sit having secured home field advantage in a game to be played in front of their fans at Citi Field against either the Giants or Cardinals.
By winning Saturday’s game against the Phillies, the Mets get what they wanted and needed in having Noah Syndergaard available to start on Wednesday. The Mets also get Monday and Tuesday off which means Bartolo Colon ready to start the series against the Chicago Cubs if the Mets can win that 163rd game of the season.
The Mets also learned that Wilmer Flores has been shut down for the season with a balky wrist injury. Flores has hit lefties well and this is not the news they wanted to hear with Madison Bumgarner looming as the Giants starter against Syndergaard if the Giants can hold off the Cardinals. T J Rivera, who has filed in with surprising numbers is now the regular starting second baseman for the Mets.
For his part, Syndergaard has been masterful, but not necessarily spectacular. He finished second on the team in wins to Bartolo Colon with 14. Mets fans dubbed him the nickname “Thor” and is easily up for this challenge. Referring to the up and down ride the Mets experienced this year, Syndergaard told the New York Daily News, “Seems like yesterday but you know after the All-Star Game we were able to turn it around,” Syndergaard said Saturday. “It’s just been an unbelievable ride so far. Much like it was last year.”
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In other Mets news, Lucas Duda is still not fully recovered from a back injury and he remains iffy . In all likelihood, James Loney who hit a two run home run on Saturday will likely be starting at first.
The two days off will also help the bullpen giving workhorse Addison Reed and Jeurys Familia some needed rest. It looks like the weatherman will be cooperating too with temperatures falling only to a low of about 55 with only a ten percent chance of rain.
Syndergaard added, “We’ve had injuries and guys go down, but we’ve had someone step up and take their place, we just kept going. We got here and now we’re going to just use that to keep going from here.”
To be sure, the experience gained from last year’s run to the World Series is invaluable now for the Mets. They’ll need to take the long road in from the Wild Card position this time. But for a team that was 60-62 just eight weeks ago with both Jacob deGrom and Steven Matz both still in their rotation at the time, just about anything is possible.
At the beginning of the season, the Mets with their Five Aces rotation were thought to be what the Chicago Cubs are now. It didn’t work out that way. And when the national television gets a glimpse of the Mets lineup that Terry Collins runs out there nowadays, they might very well be as surprised as the Mets faithful that this team has made it even this far.
Noah Syndergaard takes the mound on Wednesday determined to add to the mystique and drama of the Mets 2016 season. Because the roller coaster he referred to before can only go up from here on in. There’s no room for down any more.
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