(Story by Marco Stoovelaar; Photo by Henk Seppen)
 Mets win vs. Dodgers in NLDS-opener that set strikeout-record
Nederlands
 LOS ANGELES, California (USA) -
The New York Mets opened the best-of-five National League Division Series vs. Los Angeles Dodgers on Friday-evening (October 9) with a 3-1 victory.
Starting pitchers Clayton Kershaw and Jacob deGrom struckout 24 batters combined and accomplished a postseason-record.
Game Two will be played on Saturday.
Earlier today, the St. Louis Cardinals shutout the Chicago Cubs in their NLDS-opener.
But the Mets registered the sixth win by a visiting team in the eight postseason-games played so far.
The Dodgers won their third consecutive and 14th overall NL West Division-title after finishing with a 92-70 record.
En route to their championship, the Dodgers eliminated the San Francisco Giants, who were dethroned as World Series-champion, as they didn't made the postseason this year.
The Dodgers are now playing in their 29th postseason.
For the first time since 1983, the Dodgers led the National League in homeruns with 187.
The Dodgers are led since 2011 by Manager Don Mattingly, who led the team to 446 wins in his five years with the club.
The Mets were 90-72 this season and captured the title in the NL East.
This was their sixth championship and first since 2006.
The Mets are now playing in their eighth postseason.
The Mets are led by Manager Terry Collins, who after having managed 1,688 games, now is in his first postseason.
Collins is Manager of the Mets now for five years, winning 394 games.
Lefthander Clayton Kershaw (16-7) started for the Dodgers, righthander Jacob deGrom (14-8) for the Mets.
deGrom struckout six batters in the first two innings.
In the first, with one out, he gave up a single to Howie Kendrick, but followed with two strikeouts.
In the second inning, he gave up a lead-of double to Justin Turner.
Two strikeouts followed, then deGrom walked Joc Pederson intentionally.
Not only to set up a force play, but also to face pitcher Clayton Kershaw, who became his sixth strikeout-victim.
With that, Jacob deGrom became the first pitcher in history the throw six strikeouts in the first two innings in a postseason-game.
In the bottom of the third inning, the righthander gave up a 2-out ground-rule double to Corey Seager, but hereafter, Adrian Gonzalez struckout.
...Curtis Granderson gives advice to young Dutch players...
...during the European Big League Tour 2013 in...
...Rotterdam (Netherlands)...
(© Photo: Henk Seppen) |
For the Mets, David Wright walked with one out in the first inning off of Kershaw, who then followed with two strikeouts.
In the second, it was Lucas Duda, who singled with one out for the Mets, but again Kershaw struckout the next two batters.
That pattern repeated itself in the third inning.
Curtis Granderson then singled with one out, but again Kershaw closed with two strikeouts.
Kershaw added two more strikeouts in the fourth, but this time they came after Daniel Murphy had led off with a homerun to give the Mets an 1-0 lead.
In the bottom of the fourth, trailing 1-0, the Dodgers got two baserunners.
Justin Turner led off with a single, then A.J. Ellis singled after deGrom's eighth strikeout.
After a flyout, Clayton Kershaw was the batter with two runners on base.
He drove the ball into deep centerfield where it was caught by Yoenis Cespedes just in front of the wall.
Despite giving up the run in the fourth, Kershaw continued his dominance in the fifth.
He struckout the first two batters, then gave up a single to Granderson, but ended with another strikeout to lift his total to eleven.
In the bottom of the fifth, deGrom also added two more strikeouts to bring his total to ten.
deGrom then also increased his strikeout-total to eleven in the sixth inning.
With that, deGrom and Kershaw wrote history, as they became the first two pitchers in postseason-history to strikeout eleven batters in the same game.
The only other time that two pitchers reached double figures in the same game happened in Game 5 of the 1944 World Series between the St, Louis Cardinals and St. Louis Browns.
Winning pitcher Mort Cooper (Cardinals) then struckout 12 and Denny Galehouse (Browns) 10.
Both threw a complete game.
Playing in leftfield in that game for the Cardinals was Danny Litwhiler, who later became a wellknown coach and baseball-ambassador.
In the sixties, Litwhiler also visited the Netherlands to give clinics and held practices with the players of the Netherlands National Team.
In the top of the seventh inning, Kershaw ran into problems.
He walked lead-off hitter Lucas Duda, then also walked Ruben Tejada with one out.
The two runners advanced on a sacrifice bunt by Jacob deGrom, then the bases got loaded when Curtis Granderson also walked.
That led to a pitching change, as Pedro Baez took over, but he gave up a 2-run single to team-captain David Wright that lifted the Mets-lead to 3-0.
In the bottom of the seventh, Jacob deGrom retired the side, including two more strikeouts to bring his total to 13 in his postseason-debut.
In the eighth, deGrom was relieved by Tyler Clippard.
With one out, he gave up a double to Howie Kendrick, who then scored the first Dodger-run on a 2-out single by Adrian Gonzalez.
Hereafter, Jeurys Familia became the new pitcher and he ended the inning when Justin Turner lined out.
But that to be all for the Dodgers.
(October 9)
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