Phillies comfortable with Noah Syndergaard on the mound for World Series Game 3

Noah Syndergaard frames the whole deal correctly. Not just that he’s poised to start Monday in the pivotal Game 3 of this World Series for the Phillies, series tied, facing the Houston Astros in only his second 2022 postseason start.

Widen the frame. The moment, as Syndergaard realizes, is larger than that.

“I’m just really excited on a personal level to be able to toe the slab in the first World Series game since 2008,” Syndergaard said Sunday afternoon during a Phillies media availability.

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Although the last World Series game played at Citizens Bank Park was in 2009, Phillies fans won’t mind Syndergaard’s taking it a year farther back, to the last time the Phillies won it at all. His point is on target — you can call it the biggest baseball game in South Philadelphia in many years.

“I don’t really worry too much about Noah, about his nerves and getting caught up in the moment,” said Phillies manager Rob Thomson. “He’s a pretty steady guy. He’s been through it before.”

Syndergaard has pitched 5⅓ postseason innings over two games, giving up one earned run. Thomson brought up how Syndergaard has started a World Series game before. He won the only 2015 game the Mets took that year against the Kansas City Royals — in Game 3, as it happens, Syndergaard’s only start.

“Seven years just seems like a long time ago,” Syndergaard said. “I was just a very naive rookie at the time. I’ve had a lot of baseball under my belt to mature and to accumulate some experience. I’ve been in this scenario before. I think the Phillies have been in this scenario before. We’re even, 1-1, taking it back to the Bank, where I think we’re pretty dangerous. That playing environment is really going to help us out.”

How long he can go is a central plot line for only his second start since Oct. 1.

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“His highest [postseason] pitch count is around 35 pitches,’’ Thomson said. “So he’s a big, strong guy, it’s the World Series. We’ll see how he does, how he feels. Constantly communicate with him as he comes off the field. If he’s throwing the ball well and he’s not rusty, and he’s sharp, we’ll keep going as long as he feels good.”

The one-time-through-the-lineup guideline used for his start against Atlanta might not hold to the batter, even if that remains kind of a benchmark.

“I could really see him going a little bit further than that, too,” Thomson said. “We’ll see. I think that three-inning mark, probably three, four innings, is probably where we’re at.”

However this plays out, Syndergaard 2.0 might be a Netflix miniseries, starting with his Tommy John surgery in 2020.

“This year has really been a lot,” Syndergaard said. “I think once the season ends, I’m going to need quite a bit of time to decompress just because of the roller coaster, coming back from not pitching for two years, signing with the Angels, being with them and then being dealt over here on Aug.1, and reaching the playoffs, grinding out every playoff round.”

This would be part of the script:

“I love this team, I love these guys,” Syndergaard said, talking about how “from the second we walked in this clubhouse,” he felt welcomed, “like we’re family. I can’t say enough about these guys, just how talented and good people they are.”

His own goal, he suggested, is fairly simple: “Be a selfless teammate.”

Handing the pressure of the moment happens to be part of that.

“Just focusing on being who I can be,” Syndergaard said “I’m not trying to get outside my realm of a pitcher. I’ve definitely learned a lot. I feel like I’ve evolved as a pitcher, not just a thrower, over the course [of his career] to this year. It is the World Series, but we have to play like it’s a normal game, don’t let the game speed up on us.”

For however long that turns out to be.

“I feel like I can go for as long as they’ll allow me to,” Syndergaard said. “Now is as good a time as ever to empty the tanks and leave nothing left.”

Asked about the rain in Monday night’s forecast, Thomson said of Major League Baseball’s having the call on whether to start the game, “They want to have a big enough window to start the game and finish it. They do not want a rain delay. They don’t want one team to lose their starter and the other team to get their advantage.”

Rain delays for a World Series game in Philly. Yes, maybe lessons were learned from 2008.

On having two straight games ahead with the bullpen sure to get heavy use, the manager said, “We’re going to be using the bullpen, and I’ve got a lot of confidence in everybody in that bullpen. We’ll be grinding on them for sure.”

That explains, Thomson said, why Ranger Suárez is scheduled to pitch Tuesday, “to give him that extra day. That may give him an extra 20-25 pitches, as opposed to going Game 3.” The manager said he looked at that Game 1 relief appearance by Suárez, when he got two outs, as sort of a “super bullpen” session.

“Again, Ranger is a different cat,” Thomson said of what allowed that to happen.

The Astros will go with righthander Lance McCullers Jr. in Game 3.