You can make this about Clayton Kershaw if you want. You can make this about Don Mattingly if you prefer.
Just don't forget why the Los Angeles Dodgers ace and manager are in a bind one game into a postseason that matters greatly to both of them. The seventh inning was only a problem because of what Jacob deGrom had already done in the first six.
The Dodgers' whole postseason strategy is built around winning the games Kershaw and Zack Greinke pitch. The New York Mets' whole strategy in the National League Division Series was finding a way to win at least one of those games.
One game in, the Mets already have that win, 3-1 over the Dodgers, simply because on a night when deGrom said he was trying to match Kershaw, he outdid him.
In fact, deGrom's spectacular Game 1 (seven scoreless innings, 13 strikeouts) wasn't just better than Kershaw's good-but-not-good-enough effort (6.2 innings, three runs, 11 strikeouts) Friday night. In the first postseason start of his career, deGrom outdid anything Kershaw has done in his nine career postseason starts.
He didn't win this series for the Mets—not yet—because no one wins a best-of-five series in Game 1. But in one game, deGrom changed the series, because instead of the Mets needing to find a way past Kershaw or Greinke, the Dodgers are the ones looking ahead with dread.
Game 2 on Saturday, with Greinke facing Mets rookie Noah Syndergaard, becomes almost a must-win. Game 3 on Monday in New York doesn't look like a great matchup for the Dodgers, with Brett Anderson facing Matt Harvey. So then the Dodgers probably try to bring Kershaw back on short rest, while the Mets can more likely save deGrom for a Game 5 start on extra rest—or have him ready to start Game 1 in the National League Championship Series.
We're looking ahead, and sure, things can change quickly in these short series. But that's what deGrom did Friday.
He changed everything.
"To have him go out against Clayton and win the game is a huge lift for us," Mets manager Terry Collins said. "We needed a confidence boost, and Jake gave it to us."
It became a feel-good night all around for the Mets, with captain David Wright getting the biggest hit with his two-run single after Kershaw departed in the seventh. Wright is the one guy remaining from the last Mets team to make the postseason (in 2006), the guy who committed long term to the Mets and had the Mets commit to him, the guy who missed much of this season with back trouble and wasn't sure he'd play again.
And there he was, sitting in a postgame interview room next to deGrom, while Kershaw was in the Dodgers clubhouse trying to explain once again how an October start went so wrong.
"I got out-pitched," he told reporters. "That's basically the moral of the story. Jacob pitched an amazing game. He out-pitched me, plain and simple."
He sure did.
DeGrom was brilliant from the start, with his 97 mph fastball that sometimes crept up to 99. He was smart, realizing he needed to find a way to be more efficient after throwing 20 pitches in the first inning and 25 in the second.
He did exactly that, and while 121 pitches were a season high, they got him to the eighth inning, far enough that when the first reliever Collins used (Tyler Clippard) got in trouble, the Mets manager could go immediately to shutdown closer Jeurys Familia.
The bridge to Familia is an issue that could bite Collins and the Mets as they play on in October. But the reason we're talking now about them playing on is that deGrom gave them the start they needed Friday.
He knew what this was about. He knew that with Harvey probably limited to one start per series, the responsibility of starting Game 1 would go to him. He embraced it.
He knew starting Game 1 against the Dodgers meant finding a way to beat the guy who is probably the best pitcher in the game. He embraced that too.
"I was seeing what [Kershaw] was doing," deGrom told Sam Ryan on TBS after it was over. "I'm just trying to match him. That was my whole goal tonight."
Goal accomplished, for deGrom and for the Mets. His goal was to match Kershaw. Their goal was to find a way to win at least one of these first two games, with Kershaw and Greinke starting for the Dodgers.
They did it, and now Mattingly and the Dodgers are in a bigger bind than the one they faced in the seventh inning Friday.
Danny Knobler covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.
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