By Zachary McMahon-
The New York Mets hosted the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 3 of the NLCS on Wednesday night at Citi Field in Queens, N.Y. The series is tied at one after a big shutout by the Dodgers in game 1 and the Mets victory in Game 2 in LA.
Gavin Lux returned to the lineup after missing Game 2 with a right hip flexor injury.
Luis Severino pitched 4 ⅔ innings for the Mets, allowing three hits, no earned runs, four walks with three strikeouts. Walker Buehler tossed four innings, allowing three hits, two walks, no earned runs and six strikeouts.
The Dodgers scored their first runs of the second inning off an infield single by Will Smith, and a sacrifice fly by Tommy Edman.
Then the team goes for three home runs, a two-run home run by Enrique Hernandez in the sixth innings, Shohei Ohtani’s three-run homer in the eighth and a solo homer by Max Muncy in the ninth inning as it made it a 8-0 game. That was Muncy’s 13th postseason homer, which ties the franchise record for most postseason homers with Corey Seager and Justin Turner.
The Mets had multiple chances to get on the board, but strong pitching from Buehler had stranded six runners in the first three innings. Both Francisco Alvarez and Francisco Lindor struck out with bases loaded, after walks to J.D. Martinez and Tyrone Taylor, and an infield single by Jose Iglesias. Brandon Nimmo hit an infield single in the first and was stranded, Mark Vientos hit a single, and Starling Marte was hit by Buehler before Martinez struck out with those runners on base.
The Dodgers pitching staff allowed a combined four-hitter and struck out 13 batters, including rookie reliever Ben Casparius who had three strikeouts in the final two innings as the Dodgers got their fourth postseason shutout victory. The Dodgers are the eighth team in postseason history to have four or more shutout victories in the same postseason. The last teams to do it were the 2021 & 2020 Atlanta Braves, both teams reached the NLCS, and the 2021 team won the World Series. The only team that had more shutout victories were the 2016 Cleveland Indians (now Guardians) who had five shutout victories, in the year that they lost to the Chicago Cubs in the World Series. The Dodgers are the first team to have three shutouts of eight or more runs in the same postseason.
Dodgers rookie Yoshinobu Yamamoto will be starting Game 4 on Thursday against Jose Quintana at 8:08 pm on FS1.
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