The 2024 National League Championships Series pits a Los Angeles Dodgers team that many expected to be playing for the pennant — even if there were a bevy of pundits predicting the San Diego Padres would advance — against the surprising New York Mets.
The Dodgers won four of six head-to-head games this season, with each of their meetings coming early in the year.
“I’ll tell you this, we saw these guys earlier. They’re a completely different team than we saw. They’re playing considerably better,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said about the Mets on the eve of the NLCS beginning at Dodger Stadium.
“(Francisco) Lindor is back to being Frankie. They’ve just got a lot of confidence. So we’ve got to play good baseball.”
Although the Mets are not thought of in the same light as the Padres in terms of overall talent, Roberts warned the Dodgers can’t get lulled into a letdown.
“I just don’t see it much different outside of the fact that they’re two different ballclubs, but we have to come with the same intensity, focus and energy that we had this last series,” he said.
As for the notion that the Dodgers raised their level of intensity when facing the Padres in the NLDS, Roberts believes that process began before October.
“I think we actually created it before the series. I really do. I don’t think that that was the result of winning the series,” he said.
“I think that we had that from pitch one, Game 1, and I expect it to kind of build from here.”
New York Mets record since June 2
When the Mets lost to the Arizona Diamondbacks for the second consecutive day to begin June, it dropped them to a season-worst 11 games under .500. The following day marked the start of a prolonged stretch that propelled the Mets into the postseason picture.
Since June 2, the Mets had the best record in baseball at 63-38. That still required playing a doubleheader the final day after the regular season was scheduled to conclude.
New York punched their ticket for October baseball by defeating the Atlanta Braves in the first game at Truist Park. They wound up facing the Milwaukee Brewers to begin the playoffs, and upset them in three games.
That was followed by stunning the No. 2 seed Philadelphia Phillies to set up a clash with the Dodgers.
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