We were promised greatness. Leading into this game, the prospective Madison Bumgarner vs. Noah Syndergaardmatchup was supposed to be the clash of aces that makes for must-see baseball. The game’s most notorious postseason pitcher–one of the greatest of all time already–faced off against the hardest-throwing starting pitcher in the game, a young ace who carried his team on his back when every other Mets starter collapsed around him.
Baseball being baseball, and the Mets and Giants being two very weird ball clubs, there was a sense of impending ironic detachment; there was no way that the game itself could live up to the hype. Perhaps one team or the other would break it open early, and the aces would be chased before the fourth inning? But no, it was exactly what we’d longed for. Madison Bumgarner, the throwback lefty who eats innings like they are scrambled eggs and surges in October, threw nine not-quite-perfect and yet masterful innings, mixing up pitches and out-working and out-thinking each of the Mets’ hitters. And Noah Syndergaard, the hard-throwing phenom, threw seven brilliant innings, took a no-hitter through 5.7 of them, and left the game with 10 strikeouts and no runs allowed.
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