NEW YORK — The New York Mets kept their magical season going, beating the Los Angeles Dodgers, 12-6, on Friday (Saturday in Manila) 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, then 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 6 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' 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.
The Yankees, with a three-run homer from Giancarlo Stanton and a tiebreaking pair of runs in the top of the ninth, beat the Guardians, 8-6, to take a 3-1 stranglehold on the American League Championship Series.
The Mets, with their backs against the wall, came out firing.
They seized 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 out in the second when Enrique Hernandez raced home on a wild pitch from Mets hurler David Peterson to Shohei Ohtani.
But 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.