Mets Folie à Deux: Game 3 win showed again how this playoff run is no joke

Finally, the New York Mets won a game where it didn’t take too much theatrics. Their 7-2 win over the Philadelphia Phillies on Tuesday pushed them one win away from the NLCS. The thought that the Mets could do more than win a participation trophy this postseason has gone beyond a shared delusion. It’s now very real.

Critiquing the Mets along this run has been easy. Calls with the pitching staff. Offensive absences. Failure to execute. Fan overreactions have been plentiful and at times reasonable.

Game 3 gave us something different. There was no triumphant comeback. There was no singular inning where all of the run scoring took place. The Mets played as complete of a game as they could with a stellar starting pitching performance by Sean Manaea and some early home runs by Pete Alonso and Jesse Winker.

The Mets win in Game 3 was their best of the playoff run

Was this the most memorable Mets win of the postseason? Hardly. In fact, if we were to rank all of the games from an unbiased standpoint, it was the most boring game thus far. How do you compete with anything that happened in Milwaukee? The first two games between the Mets and Phillies were as good as playoff baseball can possibly get.

Our hearts needed a rest from all of the anxiety of the first three wins and two losses leading into Game 3. Manaea ensured this by shutting the Phillies down with such ease. The added insurance runs late made the situation much less tense by the time Phil Maton made us begin to question how much we can continue to trust him.

Good defense and timely hitting added to the win. The Phillies never seemed like they stood a chance. It wasn’t a game where mistakes or managerial decisions decided the winner. This was a pure Mets win and exactly what they needed to do in Game 4 to finish off the Phillies for good.