Mets beat Cubs and Arrieta for 2-0 series lead

The Mets don’t have to look any further than their epic victory over LA in Game 5 of the Division Series. Edwin Encarnacion hit a two-run shot and Young yielded five hits and three runs over six innings.

But with his 2015 total now approaching 250 innings, the Cy Young Award contender has been much less effective in his last two outings.

After the game, Arrieta insisted that he felt physically fine throughout his start. I know it’s Psychobabble 101, but it actually works. Murphy, whose 14 homers in the regular season were a career high, is hitting unlike he ever has before.

“I can’t deny that it might be”.

I’m not going to pretend this doesn’t stink. He was everywhere on the field tonight, getting on base twice, stealing two bases, scoring two runs, and making the defensive play of the night.

“From the side, delivery was good”.

Lolita Ortiz, a 38-year-old client relationship manager and Cubs fan from Chicago, pointed out the two teams have a small chapter of contentious history before this series: “1969, the Mets, that’s it; that’s the rivalry”.

Murphy smacked his fifth homer in seven playoff games this year, matching a club record for a playoff run set by Mike Piazza.

The bruised big apple at Citi Field got a Band-Aid.

“That was the game right there”. “It was really hard to recover from that”.

After Curtis Granderson led the game off with a single, David Wright knocked him in with a deep double into centerfield. Murphy put an exclamation point on the inning when he snuck a line drive inside the foul pole down the right field line, staking the Mets to a 3-0 lead.

The 6-foot-10 third round draft pick out of Princeton in 2000 appeared as a reliever in Game 1 of the ALDS, giving up a run in four innings.

“It was nice to see the bullpen come in and get a piece of it”, Murphy said.

Meanwhile, a day after Matt Harvey’s excellent start in Game 1, Noah Syndergaard threw five and two-thirds innings of three-hit ball, striking out nine and allowing just one earned run.

It was only the second time the right-hander gave up at least three runs in the first. “We were pumped to be able to take care of business at home because we feel like this is a tremendous home-field advantage”.

“That was a lot of fun”, Murphy said.

“Fortunately enough I had things working pretty well”.

“Curtis Granderson, he’s just one of those quiet guys that goes about his job”, Collins said Sunday, prior to Game 2 of the National League Championship Series.

Before Arrieta even had an out to his name, it was 3-0 Mets, a gap the Cubs could never close. After that, he won 13 consecutive decisions – including the playoffs.

Compared to last year’s NLCS Game 1 on Fox (Giants/Cardinals), viewership was up 58 percent, and versus TBS’ most recent coverage of an NLCS Game 1 (Cardinals/Dodgers, 2013), Mets/Cubs was up 46 percent.

Said Maddon: “Jake wasn’t as sharp as he can be, but he definitely held serve”.

“The ambush early got us”, Cubs manager Joe Maddon said.

Say this for Daniel Murphy and the New York Mets: They have their October formula down and are sticking with it. Dexter Fowler’s single with one out in the sixth started the rally that knocked out Syndergaard.