Noah Syndergaard brought two elements heretofore missing from the 111th World Series:
Loathing and competition.
He incited the dislike with the very first pitch of Game 3 Friday night, a pitch that sailed near Kansas City leadoff hitter Alcides Escobar’s head and unleashed a verbal barrage from the Royals dugout in real time and then again after the game. Syndergaard offered a few barbed retorts that only will heighten the on-field friction the rest of this series.
But suddenly there is a rest of a series to care about beyond hostilities. That is because the Mets are back in the Fall Classic and that is pretty much on Syndergaard, too. For he went from reeling to dealing in Game 3. Nearly knocked out in the second inning to delivering the key pitch in the sixth.
His tenacity and survival skills have changed everything in a World Series that is now tighter and tenser. The Mets won 9-3. They are within two games to one. And we now await Game 4 on Saturday night not only because the Mets have a chance to get even, but because the Royals do too — though in a completely different way.
“If they have a problem with me throwing inside, then they can meet me 60 feet, 6 inches away,” Syndergaard said. “I’ve got no problem with that.”
Them thar are fightin’ words.
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So now we see if there is fight beyond the normal parameters. This was not Red Sox-Yankees or Dodgers-Giants. Before 8:08 p.m. on Oct. 30, 2015, the Mets and Royals had no beef.
But then Syndergaard threw the first pitch of Game 3, a 98-mph missile that sent Escobar sprawling.
Maybe this would have passed without incident had Syndergaard not hinted at his intentions. When asked the previous day about handling Escobar, who has been hot because of his penchant for swinging at first-pitch fastballs, and do damage, Syndergaard said he “had a few tricks up his sleeve.”
Normally, in the aftermath of such a high, hard one, pitchers will obfuscate about their true intent publicly. But Syndergaard admitted afterward that he summoned catcher Travis d’Arnaud upon arriving at Citi Field to tell him his plan was to go high and tight with Pitch 1 and break off a curve away for Pitch 2. Syndergaard insisted he did not want to hit Escobar, but “I feel like it really made a statement to start the game, that you guys can’t dig in and get too aggressive because I’ll come in there.”
When informed the Royals believed he was head-hunting and asked to clarify what he was trying to do, Syndergaard replied, “My intent was to make them uncomfortable, and I feel like I did that. I know that for every postseason game that Escobar has swung at first-pitch fastball, and I didn’t think he would want to swing at that one.”
That induced some chuckles in the press conference room, but the Royals were not laughing. Escobar said it was not right to throw at his head. Kansas City third baseman Mike Moustakas explained, “The whole team was pretty upset.”
Syndergaard’s comments will only further trigger Royal anger. But to what extent? No one wants to get ejected from a World Series that is no longer one-sided.
There were edgy moments when it looked as if Syndergaard might actually pitch the Mets into an 0-3 hole. In his first 10 batters, the big righty yielded six hits — all on fastballs of at least 97 mph — and three runs. He was two batters away from coming out in the second inning if he did not right himself.
But he did. He found the release point on his slider and that enhanced his fastball and curve, especially when he worked down in the zone. He retired 12 in a row at one point before — with two outs in the sixth — allowing a single and his only two walks of the game to load the bases with two outs. Bartolo Colon was warmed. But Terry Collins liked how his rookie was doing and — with a 5-3 lead — perhaps invested his season in Syndergaard.
“We needed the third out and I thought he was the guy to get it,” Collins said.
He threw two outer-edge sliders that d’Arnaud described as “perfect.” One for a strike, the next beaten into the ground by Alex Rios. Wilmer Flores ranged behind second to field and throw out Rios, extinguishing Kansas City’s last real opportunity to overcome the Mets in Game 3.
Syndergaard’s game was over, at least on the field. He had made the World Series tighter with six fortitude-dense innings and then made it tenser with a few comments that had some John Wayne and Nolan Ryan about them.
Syndergaard went up and in, and long and effective. We have a different World Series because of that.