Dodgers, Mets looking for edge in NLCS Game 3

NEW YORK -- No team in Major League Baseball has climbed off the mat more than the New York Mets. Nothing came easy to the Los Angeles Dodgers during a 98-win regular season.

Could the National League Championship Series be anything other than even through two games?

The Mets and Dodgers will tussle for the series lead Wednesday night, when New York hosts Los Angeles in Game 3 of the best-of-seven set.

Luis Severino (1-0, 4.50 ERA in the playoffs) is slated to start for the Mets against fellow right-hander Walker Buehler (0-1, 10.80).

The Mets evened the series Monday when Mark Vientos hit a second-inning grand slam in a 7-3 victory.

While Vientos' grand slam provided the decisive runs, Francisco Lindor set the tone for the Mets when he hit a leadoff homer to cap an eight-pitch at-bat against opener Ryan Brasier.

The homer was the latest bit of resilience displayed by the Mets, who were 11 games below .500 in early June, didn't clinch a playoff berth until they split a doubleheader with the Atlanta Braves on Sept. 30 and were two outs away from being eliminated by the Milwaukee Brewers in an NL wild-card series Oct. 3 before Pete Alonso hit a go-ahead three-run homer.

The Mets squandered a pair of leads in a 7-6 loss to the Philadelphia Phillies in Game 2 of the NL Division Series on Oct. 6 before eliminating their rivals with wins in the next two games. New York then opened the NLCS on Sunday night by suffering the most lopsided postseason defeat in franchise history in a 9-0 loss.

"We've done it the whole year," Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said Tuesday. "We got punched, we found a way to get back up. It's going to be a fun series -- a lot of back-and-forth, two really good teams."

Lindor's homer ended a historic streak for the Dodgers, who had scored 23 unanswered runs and thrown 33 consecutive scoreless innings dating back to the third inning of a Game 3 loss to the San Diego Padres in the NLDS.

The defeat also underscored the fragile nature of the Dodgers' pitching staff and the challenges of piecing together a rotation for a long series.

Gavin Stone and Tyler Glasnow, the only starters to throw more than 100 innings for Los Angeles this season, are both out for the season due to injuries, as is three-time Cy Young Award winner Clayton Kershaw. The only Dodgers starter to last more than six innings since Sept. 1 is Jack Flaherty, who tossed 7 1/3 innings on Sept. 8 against Cleveland before going seven scoreless innings Sunday.

Brasier was followed Monday by four lower-leverage relievers, including Brent Honeywell Jr., who threw three innings in his first big-league outing since Sept. 24.

"Obviously, Jack kind of put the blueprint out there and kind of put on a clinic in Game 1," Buehler said Tuesday. "And, obviously, we were kind of hodge-podging it together in Game 2."

A pair of injured third-place hitters, the Mets' Brandon Nimmo and the Dodgers' Freddie Freeman, are expected to play Wednesday. Nimmo is battling plantar fasciitis in his left foot while Freeman is dealing with a sprained right ankle that forced him to miss Game 4 of the NLDS.

Severino last pitched Oct. 6, when he didn't factor into the decision after allowing three runs over six innings as the Mets fell to the Phillies 7-6 in Game 2 of the NLDS. He is 2-4 with a 5.01 ERA in 13 postseason games (12 starts).

Buehler took the loss in his 2024 postseason debut Oct. 8, when he gave up six runs over five innings as the Dodgers fell to the Padres 6-5 in Game 3 of the NLDS. He is 3-4 with a 3.40 ERA in 16 career postseason starts.

Severino is 0-1 with a 10.50 ERA in two career games (one start) against the Dodgers. Buehler is 1-1 with a 5.00 ERA in five starts against the Mets.

--Jerry Beach, Field Level Media