Mets praise Joe Maddon, Cubs players and fans

Exhilarated Mets fans who had traveled to watch their team sweep the Cubs in the NLCS Wednesday, serenaded their players with chants and screams well past midnight behind the Wrigley Field visitors' dugout.

Daniel Murphy, the home run record setting National League Championship Series MVP, is a Team New Balance member and hit the diamond throughout the series in all black cleats. This postseason has its own take on Murphy's law: If something can go right for Daniel Murphy, it will.

With one more series left to , and the most important one of them all, Murphy enters the World Series just one homer shy of tying the record for the most ever in a single postseason while he has already tallied the most ever by a second baseman.

Jacob deGrom, Matt Harvey and Noah Syndergaard will all be fully rested for the opening three games. D'Arnaud followed with a shot to right for the Mets' second set of consecutive homers in playoff history, joining Darryl Strawberry and Kevin McReynolds in Game 4 of the 1988 NLCS against Los Angeles.

"And this is all based on, like I said, scouting and development is where it begins".

Mets fans have been through a lot since the team's last trip to the World Series - from the 2007 collapse to the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme to countless #LOLMets moments - but in this playoff run, and in this NLCS especially, their team has coolly marched on. In nine playoff games, he has seven long balls and is 13 for 38 with eight RBIs. "He's paid his dues", Northwoods League Chairman Dick Radatz said Thursday.

A large part of the reason the Red Sox' win in 2004 was so incredible was because of the context: it had literally never been done before in baseball, so the improbability was a major factor, and they were winning against their longtime rivals, which also happened to be one of sport's greatest rivalries.

Murphy said that he was most gratified by the fact the majority of his home runs have come in victories, often in crucial situations.

But his work at the plate is what put the pennant in New York's hands. Manager Terry Collins knows there were some ups and downs getting there. "He is an overachiever". He's not blessed with the greatest of talents. To be able to completely reverse that 180 and now celebrate and get a chance to go to the World Series, I wish I could bottle it all.

 

New York, meanwhile, advanced to the World Series for the first time since a bitter Subway Series loss to the Yankees in 2000. The big market Mets will play either the small-market Kansas City Royals or the Toronto Blue Jays, whose home fans aren't included in the ratings. Maybe you will get to face the Mets again, and avenge the previous defeat. That bodes well for the Mets, though the Cubs will surely spend the offseason adding pitching.