Mets-Dodgers NLCS Game 1 storylines

The Mets’ incredible late-season surge — and their even more amazin’ postseason run — now takes them all the way out to the West Coast. Their next opponent is a team that has gone through its fair share of difficulties this year, but nevertheless has reached exactly the place it expected back in Spring Training.

It’s NYC vs. L.A. How could you not watch?

Here are the five biggest storylines heading into the NLCS, which begins Sunday night.

NLCS Game 1: Mets at Dodgers
8:15 p.m. ET, FOX
SP: Kodai Senga (NYM) vs. Jack Flaherty (LAD)

1. Can these Mets vibes just continue forever?
It is difficult to argue that the Mets are more talented than the Dodgers. There’s obviously a lot of talent here; the Mets are not all vibes. But it’s difficult to make the argument that the Mets roster looks better on paper. You would have said the same thing going into their series against the Brewers, though, and definitely their series against the Phillies. And yet here they are, four games away from their first World Series in nearly a decade.

So much of what the Mets have been doing has felt touched by the baseball gods — wild late-inning comeback after wild late-inning comeback. While those sort of unlikely theatrics can’t repeat themselves forever, they certainly could for, say, another couple of weeks. Put it this way: If the Mets were to split these first two games at Dodger Stadium … can you imagine how roaring Citi Field is going to be? Would you want to go into that lion’s den? Would anyone?

2. Do the Dodgers have two reliable starters now?
Even in the Dodgers’ wildest, most optimistic projections, they would have never imagined that they would get five scoreless innings with only two hits allowed from Yoshinobu Yamamoto in Game 5. Now, though, he can’t pitch again until at least Game 3 (and perhaps even Game 4) of the NLCS.

So can Flaherty give the Dodgers’ tattered rotation a second starting pitcher they can count on?

Flaherty has been … fine as a Dodger, putting up a 3.58 ERA in 10 regular-season starts, which is less effective than he was as a Tiger but a definitive improvement over what the Dodgers had before. But he didn’t look great in his NLDS start against the Padres, and he showed a penchant for, well, combustible emotions that popped up in both St. Louis and Baltimore previously. Flaherty is a free agent after the season and has a chance to show what he’s made of on the biggest stage. That could be a great thing for him; the Dodgers need it to be.

3. How much can the Mets expect from Senga?
Senga has thrown 7 1/3 Major League innings this season: 5 1/3 back on July 26 and two against the Phillies in Game 1 of the NLDS. He’s back to start the opener of the NLCS, and is it reasonable to hope that he will throw more than two innings this time? David Peterson will be ready to come in when Senga can’t go any further, but it’s telling that Senga isn’t even throwing bullpen sessions between starts. The Mets are trying to conserve every bullet Senga has.

Considering the Dodgers’ rotation issues — and the fact that they didn’t have the three days off before the start of the NLCS the way the Mets did — it’s surprising to see that the Mets are the ones that are straining to fill innings in Game 1. Senga gave up a home run to the first batter he faced in the NLDS (Kyle Schwarber). The first batter he will face in the NLCS is Shohei Ohtani.

4. Is Francisco Lindor the actual star of this series?
If you’ve come across any Mets fans over the last fortnight or so, it will only be a matter of time until they start making the argument that Lindor, not Ohtani, should be the MVP of the National League. We understand this argument while acknowledging that we disagree with it and suspect most MVP voters will as well. But any Mets fan would happily have Lindor win the NLCS MVP Award instead.

Lindor has cemented his place in Mets lore over the last couple of months, and he has a real chance to make himself a Namath/Reed/Jeter/Messier/LT-level New York sports legend over the next few weeks. Lindor, remarkably, hasn’t made an All-Star Game since 2019, but he has a quiet case, already, for the Hall of Fame with years more to make it. (He’s signed through 2031, after all.) But we are at Peak Lindor right now. There are many stars and future Hall of Famers playing across the diamond from Lindor and the Mets. But he may well be the one who ends up shining brightest — starting in Game 1.

5. Shohei, Shohei, Shohei
But let’s not kid ourselves here. For all the wattage on hand for this series, from Lindor to Freddie Freeman to Mookie Betts to even Pete Alonso, the whole world is going to continue to stop the minute Ohtani comes to the plate. Ohtani finally got to make his postseason debut in the NLDS, and while he started it off with a bang, launching a monster three-run homer that ended with an epic bat fling, he was actually pretty quiet after Game 1 against the Padres. He went 2-for-15 in Games 2-5, striking out eight times, including three in the Game 5 clincher. (Imagine the noise foisted on Ohtani if the Dodgers had lost that game.)

Now that Shohei has broken the proverbial postseason seal, there isn’t a person alive watching who doesn’t expect him to do something magnificent in the NLCS. This is, after all, why he’s wearing Dodger Blue in the first place. Ohtani’s legend is secure. But it’s the postseason that makes you truly legendary. This has to be his time, right?