Mets take command of NLDS series, beat Dodgers in Game 1

LOS ANGELES – You know what they say about the best-laid plans. If you don't, Los Angeles Dodgers manager Don Mattingly can you give a crash course as he sets Friday's box score on flames.

It's the sheet of paper that will show the New York Mets took command of the National League Division Series with a 3-1 win in Game 1 because Jacob deGrom outdueled Clayton Kershaw, who still has two fewer postseason victories than Cy Young Awards to his credit.

The stats will also reveal Dodgers reliever Pedro Baez, part of a bullpen that improved down the stretch, yielded just one single, but it happened to come at the worst possible time. Isn't that always the case for Mattingly and Kershaw in the playoffs?

The Dodgers seemed to have the perfect plan, starting Kershaw in Game 1 over league ERA champion Zack Greinke because the three-time Cy Young winner is a better candidate to come back on three days' rest for a possible Game 4. Greinke would then be fully rested for Game 5.

Plus, Kershaw had been on an unreal roll, winning 11 of his last 12 decisions in the regular season while fashioning a sterling 1.22 ERA in that stretch of 17 starts. But Kershaw has yet to prove he can deliver at the same level in October – his five consecutive postseason losses represent the longest such streak in team history – and on this night he wore down in the 90-degree heat, and deGrom did not.

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While Kershaw was creating needless trouble for himself by issuing three walks in the seventh, deGrom was retiring the last 11 batters he faced on the way to striking out 13 in seven shutout innings.

"I got outpitched,'' Kershaw said. "That's basically the moral of the story.''

Well, not entirely. Kershaw was actually brilliant through six innings, striking out 11 and giving up just one run on Daniel Murphy's fourth-inning homer. But the Mets wore him down, and the bullpen fail to rescue him.

David Wright's bases-loaded single off the right-handed Baez with two outs in the seventh turned a one-run game into a 3-0 Mets lead and likely will generate unwarranted criticism of Mattingly, who might have stayed too long with Kershaw in previous playoff losses. This time he yanked the struggling left-hander after 113 pitches, and the move again backfired on the Dodgers.

"(Wright's) numbers against lefties are really good,'' said Mattingly, pointing out he wasn't going to let the Mets' third baseman face Kershaw a fourth time. "He had walked three guys in an inning. He couldn't put away (Lucas) Duda. He was just kind of out of sync.''

Not unlike the Dodgers for much of the playoffs during Mattingly's five-year managerial tenure. L.A. has made the postseason three times in a row for the first time in franchise history, winning the NL West each time, yet the club is now 6-9 in the playoffs in that spell and is looking at an uphill climb in this series.

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And though the Dodgers can take solace in having Greinke on the mound Saturday evening, they will be clear underdogs when the series moves to New York for Game 3, pitting Matt Harvey against Brett Anderson.

However, the main narrative to emerge out of Friday's game really should be about deGrom's brilliance. The lithe right-hander with the flowing mane threw tied the franchise postseason record of 13 strikeouts set by Tom Seaver in 1973. DeGrom baffled the Dodgers at times with his slider and improved changeup, and other times he simply blew them away with a fastball that was still sizzling at 97 mph in the seventh.

"He was throwing a lot harder than we've seen the last couple of outings he had,'' Dodgers catcher A.J. Ellis said. "He definitely had the adrenaline flowing, because his fastball was really electric.''

DeGrom barely faced any trouble in the late innings and victimized lefty hitters for all but one of his Ks. On a larger scale, and in a more important setting, deGrom's performance was reminiscent of his All-Star Game outing, in which he struck out the three batters he faced on 10 pitches.

Even when left fielder Michael Cuddyer missed catchable balls in the second and third innings, putting a runner in scoring position both times, deGrom bailed him out by quelling both threats. DeGrom, whose only walk was intentional, hit his spots on both sides of the plate all night, with the fastball and the secondary pitches.

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"There were a couple of times tonight 3-2 where I threw a couple of changeups,'' deGrom said of a pitch he sharpened during an 11-day hiatus in September. "I would say last year I probably wouldn't have done that. So I think just having a little more confidence out there.''

That wasn't a strong enough statement for Wright, who shared the news conference with deGrom and also hero status. Besides delivering his clutch single in the seventh, Wright worked a 12-pitch walk out of Kershaw in the opening inning, foreshadowing the Mets' tough at-bats against him most of the night.

"This guy's a beast,'' Wright said of deGrom. "He's a little modest, he won't admit it, but he's a beast.''

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