New York (AFP) – The New York Mets kept their magical season going, beating the Los Angeles Dodgers 12-6 on Friday to stay alive in their Major League Baseball playoff series. Pete Alonso hit a three-run home run in the first inning, and the Mets piled up five runs in the third on the way to an 8-1 lead. They held on to cut the deficit to 3-2 in the best-of-seven National League Championship Series. The Dodgers, who were hoping to close out the series at the Mets’ Citi Field, instead will host game six on Sunday, again with a chance to return to the World Series for the first time since they won it all in 2020. “We’ll be ready,” Alonso vowed. “We love opportunities.”
Andy Pages homered twice for the Dodgers, including a three-run blast that cut New York’s lead to 10-5 in the fifth inning. Mookie Betts’s solo homer in the sixth pulled the Dodgers within four, but the Mets held on. Starling Marte belted three doubles, driving in three runs on four hits for New York. Francisco Lindor and Jesse Winker both plated runs with triples for the Mets, who had 14 hits with no strikeouts. The winner of the series will take on either the New York Yankees or Cleveland Guardians in the World Series.
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In the American League Championship Series, the Yankees, with a three-run homer from Giancarlo Stanton and a tie-breaking pair of runs in the top of the ninth, beat the Guardians 8-6 to take a 3-1 stranglehold on the series. The Mets, with their backs against the wall, came out firing, seizing a 3-0 lead in the bottom of the first on Alonso’s towering home run to center field that also scored Lindor and Brandon Nimmo. The Dodgers pulled a run back with two outs in the second when Enrique Hernandez raced home on a wild pitch from Mets hurler David Peterson to Shohei Ohtani.
However, the Mets poured it on in the third when Marte made Dodgers starting pitcher Jack Flaherty pay for walking Alonso and Winker to open the frame, belting a double up the left field line that scored both. Flaherty retired two batters before the Mets put together three straight run-scoring hits to make it 8-1. Peterson surrendered a solo home run to Pages in the fourth as the Dodgers continued to press, but the Mets pushed their lead to 10-2 with a pair of runs in the bottom of the fourth, and Los Angeles could never close the gap.
In Cleveland, Stanton crushed his fourth home run of this postseason to power the Yankees, hammering a three-run blast off Guardians relief pitcher Cade Smith to put them up 6-2 in the sixth inning. Smith had walked Juan Soto to open the inning. Yankees slugger Aaron Judge cranked a single before a sacrifice bunt from Jazz Chisholm brought up Stanton, who launched a fastball 404 feet into the left field seats.
The Yankees, stunned by the Guardians’ come-from-behind game three victory on Thursday, wasted no time, taking a 2-0 lead in the top of the first on Soto’s two-run homer. Austin Wells also homered for the Yankees, but the Guardians scored three runs in the seventh inning to pull within 6-5. Cleveland tied it at 6-6 in the eighth when David Fry’s soft infield hit was fielded clumsily by Yankees pitcher Mark Leiter, whose toss got past first baseman Anthony Rizzo to allow Fry to second as Bo Naylor, who opened the inning with a double, scored.
The Yankees, trying to return to the World Series for the first time since winning their record 27th title in 2009, pushed across two runs in the top of the ninth against Cleveland’s star closer Emmanuel Clase and held on for the win. They can finish off the series with a victory in game five on Saturday. “The key is to go play one more game — go out there and try to win that game,” Soto said. “Forget about the series, just try to go out there and win the game … that’s all we need to do.”
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