New York Mets starting pitcher Jacob deGrom walks onto the field for a voluntary team workout Oct. 23 in New York. After sweeping the Chicago Cubs to win the NLCS, the Mets will play in the World Series against the winner of the ALCS.Julie Jacobson/The Associated Press
The way the New York Mets were playing, the last thing they needed was five days off.
No choice, though. That's exactly what they got.
After completing a four-game sweep of the Chicago Cubs in the National League Championship Series on Wednesday night, Daniel Murphy and the Mets must wait until next Tuesday to start the World Series. And recent history suggests such a long layoff in October can really be detrimental.
"I don't know if every team's the same. You know, we're going to ride that pitching. And by the way, our pitching right now could use a blow because we're pushing them pretty hard," manager Terry Collins said Friday. "I'm glad our starters are going to get an extra day."
Nonetheless, baseball is about repetition and timing. So it's a fair question: Will the National League champs look rested or rusty in the upcoming Series?
They'll open at Kansas City or Toronto – the Royals led 3-2 in the best-of-seven ALCS going into Game 6 at Kauffman Stadium on Friday night.
"The pros are you can sit back and dig yourself for a couple of days, and that's always fun to know, right?" Royals manager Ned Yost said this week. "And the cons are, you just get anxious to go. You've got to throw maybe some simulated games in batting practice to keep guys sharp."
New York might be best served rooting for Kansas City, the defending AL champion, to finish off the Blue Jays as quickly as possible.
The last four times a team coming off an LCS sweep faced a team that went the distance to reach the Fall Classic, the club with the extended layoff got wiped out in the World Series.
In fact, the squads with all the extra time off went a combined 2-16 in those World Series games. The last two such Series were sweeps: Boston over Colorado in 2007, and San Francisco over Detroit in 2012.
Those Tigers were managed by Jim Leyland, a long-time mentor to Collins. Leyland also piloted the 2006 Tigers, who swept Oakland in the ALCS but lost the World Series 4-1 to a St. Louis team that went seven games with the Mets in the NLCS.
That performance was particularly sloppy, with Detroit pitchers struggling over and over to make accurate throws to the bases.
"I think he had the better team at that time, but the team that's playing the best is the team that wins and we've got to get ourselves ready to play," Collins said. "That's why I asked him about all the preparation and stuff and he said, 'Listen, play the best players, don't ever take anything for granted, and by the way there's nothing you can do between now and when that game starts that's going to get them ready – except themselves. You can't simulate a game, you can't simulate 46,000 people in here, the flag waving, the pressure of 3-2 with the bases loaded.' So he said, 'Go about your job and make sure that guys are prepared and that's all you can do.'" Leyland even brought players up to Detroit from the Florida instructional league to scrimmage with the Tigers, Collins recalled.
"Didn't help," he said.
New York need look no further than the Cubs team it just vanquished to see the potential drawbacks of a layoff. Chicago had three days off after eliminating the rival St. Louis Cardinals in their Division Series and had won 12 of 13 overall before its young sluggers were stopped cold in the NLCS.