Palladino: Anything Is Possible In Postseason, But Subway Series Not Likely
By Ernie Palladino
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It simply doesn't matter now.
However shabbily the Mets and Yankees finished up the regular season officially ceases to hold any significance.
The postseason is here, and the important thing is that both teams are in it. Their sluggish endings -- the Yanks lost six of their final seven games, while the Mets went 1-5 -- made little difference as far as getting into the playoffs together for the first time since 2006.
Location for the Mets and the who and where for the Yanks did remain at stake, but the important part was, as always, just making the tournament. Starting with Tuesday's AL Wild Card game against Houston at Yankee Stadium, anything can happen now.
Including miracles.
That's about what it will take for these teams to produce a Subway Series in its truest form, free from the MLB-manufactured Interleague nonsense its leaders have turned into a daily occurrence league-wide. That would be the ultimate reward for this area, of course. But the reality is that the Mets have the best chance at getting an up close and personal view of the end of the postseason.
The Yanks are just struggling. Once past wild card starter Masahiro Tanaka, it's pot luck. And Tanaka coming off that bad hamstring doesn't look like a sure thing in any situation, much less in baseball's glorified one-game play-in. His four runs over five innings last Wednesday in his only appearance since hurting his leg Sept. 18 could not have settled Joe Girardi's belly, even after CC Sabathia's berth-clinching performance Thursday.
"It wasn't easy," Girardi said after the win.
It hasn't gotten any easier since. Dropping that ugly split doubleheader in Baltimore showed that the lineup remains as fickle as ever. If either team has any major forgetting to do, it's the Yanks, who owe the Texas Rangers a big thank you card for keeping them at home. Remember, we're talking about a Mets team that just got no-no'ed on Max Scherzer's 17-strikeout pitching Saturday.
They won't go into the postseason demoralized, however. Yes, they'll have to travel to LA for Friday's NLDS opener, but they'll do it with Jacob deGrom ready to go after a leisurely four-inning, 72-pitch warmup in Sunday's 1-0 finale victory. He allowed no hits, no runs, walks two, and struck out seven before Bartolo Colon and Jon Niese sandwiched Logan Verrett with 1 2/3 clean innings of relief.
While a low-scoring win may not swiffer away the dust of a no-hitter, especially one so close to the postseason, at least the Mets didn't have to spend the week thinking exclusively about an extended losing streak. They undoubtedly will put some heavy thought into solving their current most pressing problem -- two offensive runs over their last 44 innings.
That's not the best way to start a pennant and World Series chase. At least the Yanks get to put their loss away quickly, with only a one-day stew.
Still, the Mets boast a much healthier and heartier rotation than the Yanks. Given that they'll now have Colon and Niese to set up Jeurys Familia, they're probably a bit stronger in the middle innings than the Yankees, too.
If an edge is to be had, the Mets have it. Even as they head into Chavez Ravine, there to face the combined 1.91 ERA of Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke, they can rest easy in the thought that should deGrom or Noah Syndergaard lose one or both of those games, Matt Harvey awaits.
If the Yanks can't get it done against Cy Young candidate Dallas Kuechel on Tuesday, they're done.
And with them goes any shot at a real Subway Series.
