The task for the New York Mets is simple to formulate and incredibly complex to execute: beat the Los Angeles Dodgers twice.

They’ve done it before, way back in April, when they won the first two games of a series in Los Angeles (in games started by Sean Manaea and José Buttó). If they can do it now, they’ll play in the World Series for the first time since 2015 and complete the first comeback from a 3-1 deficit in franchise history.

“We can beat them,” Edwin Díaz said after Friday’s Game 5 win. “We can beat them.”

Okay, how?

Here are the three keys to pulling off wins in New York over the next two nights to claim a pennant.

Manaea must succeed in the offensive zone

Let’s talk about Manaea using a statistic called ‘Called Strikes and Whiffs Percentage’. You should infer from this title that the statistic measures the percentage of pitches that are called either strikes or whiffs. (A whiff is a hit and miss, just in case.)

A league-average pitcher had a called strike or whiff on 28.5 percent of his pitches in 2024; to start with, that number was slightly lower: 28.1 percent.

Through the first five games of the NLCS, Mets starters are getting a called strike or whiff on just 23.8 percent of pitches. They can’t get ahead or finish off the Dodgers in the strike zone, and that’s why they’ve been running around the world.

The lone exception to that trend so far was Manaea’s Game 2 start in Los Angeles, where he picked up 16 called strikes and 11 swings-and-misses on 87 pitches, or 31 percent of the time. This probably makes sense to you because you remember how he owned Shohei Ohtani in the offensive zone in that game.

Manaea can win in the strike zone because of the way his sinker plays with his new arm angle. Since making that adjustment in late July, Manaea has gotten more strikes/whiffs on his fastball than anyone in baseball. (Percentage-wise, though, he’s behind two teammates: David Peterson and Tylor Megill.) Jose Quintana can’t win with his fastball in the strike zone against a team like the Dodgers; Manaea can and did do it in Game 2.

Clearly, the Mets need a solid start from Manaea to win Game 6; they are not equipped to win a bullpen battle with Los Angeles’ rested relief corps. But the Mets likely need an excellent start from Manaea — as in, better and deeper than in Game 2 — to best prepare themselves to win both Game 6 and Game 7. And to do that, Manaea will have to get ahead and finish off hitters. efficient in the zone.

Can we get one more arm in the bullpen?

Why do the Mets likely need a better, deeper outing from Manaea in Game 6? How do you feel right now about the bullpen arms not named Ryne Stanek or Edwin Díaz?

And here’s the hard truth: These two may be available for use in both Game 6 and Game 7, but they probably won’t be effective if they’re needed in both games. The Mets’ best chance at getting the same kind of productivity from that pair is likely to stay away from Stanek completely in Game 6 and limit Díaz to six outs in the two games.

Which leaves a huge void for someone else to step up. The Mets had hoped this would be Reed Garrett, but he’s tired from the past two outings, each of which ultimately included a big home run from the No. 9 hitter. Phil Maton was Díaz’s key player late in the regular season but has looked bewildered since being asked to throw four times in five days in Milwaukee and Atlanta. Tylor Megill and Buttó are both hit hard in this series.

This may be the biggest question facing Carlos Mendoza over the next two nights. If he takes out his starter and can’t go to either of the two reliable arms in his cage, which option does he consider the least bad?

The Dodgers bullpen is not bulletproof

At first glance, the Dodgers entering a bullpen game on Sunday could swing the game in the Mets’ favor given New York’s plans to start Manaea, their best pitcher. But it depends. If Los Angeles gets an early lead and starts deploying its bevy of high-leverage weapons, it will pose a challenge. The Mets need to be able to hit the Dodgers’ best relievers to advance.

The Dodgers have managed to protect their best relief pitchers from exposure to the Mets’ best hitters.

Los Angeles high-leverage relievers Michael Kopech, Blake Treinen, Evan Phillips and Daniel Hudson have all been used sparingly, as the Mets’ top of the order has usually only gone one full-time.

Of that group, only Treinen has played against Francisco Lindor twice. None of the other Mets’ top five hitters — for this exercise that’s Lindor, Brandon Nimmo, Pete Alonso, Mark Vientos and Starling Marte — have seen any of those top four relievers more than once in the series.

Besides, Lindor hasn’t even seen Phillips. Alonso and Marte did not see Kopech or Hudson.

“They have quality weapons, and that’s part of what they do,” Mendoza said Saturday. “That makes them a strong team because if you look, they have five, six guys that they can use at any time in the game, high-leverage situations. It’s a challenge, but we will make a plan. We have good hitters.”

This doesn’t mean they can’t hit them just because they haven’t seen them much or at all. It usually doesn’t make things any easier. In the ALCS, on the other hand, top relievers in that series have been exposed to the same hitters multiple times and have allowed runs in big spots.

(Photo by Sean Manaea: Harry How/Getty Images)