In Year 13 as a major leaguer, Jose Quintana is used to games and used to big games.
He has taken the ball 359 times in the regular season.
He has pitched in six postseason games, including six brilliant, scoreless innings in the win-or-go-home Game 3 victory in the wild-card round in Milwaukee.
At 35 years old, the lefty will make what he believes is the most significant start of his career on Wednesday, when the Mets can finish off the Phillies and clinch a spot in the NLCS.
“Probably,” Quintana said before Sean Manaea led the Mets to a 7-2, Game 3 win over the Phillies at Citi Field. “I think at this point every game is Game 7 for me and for all of my teammates. We’ve been fighting a lot in all situations. … Every play, every game means a lot.”
Quintana is emblematic of a Mets club that began the season with all sorts of problems and gradually solved them.
In mid-June, 13 starts into his season, he held a 5.29 ERA and seemed on the verge of falling out of the rotation.
The Mets kept the faith, and Quintana rewarded them.
He tinkered with his arm slot, found a way to consistently throw more strikes and owned a 2.77 ERA over his last 18 regular-season starts, including a run from Aug. 25 to Sept. 18 in which he let up one earned run in 32 innings.
“The biggest adjustments [was] control counts,” said Quintana, who will oppose another lefty in Ranger Suarez. “But more than that, made a couple of adjustments on my mechanics. One of those is get my angle a little bit up, give me [a better] chance for all the pitches to go in the same tunnel.
“That was the biggest adjustment I did during the season, getting more consistency.”
Quintana faced the Phillies as recently as Sept. 13 and held them scoreless over seven innings.
As a Cardinal in 2022, he faced a similar Phillies lineup in the wild-card round and threw 5 ¹/₃ two-hit, no-run innings, though his bullpen let him down after he left.
The Mets turned to Quintana once already with their backs against the wall, and he posted zeroes against the Brewers to allow his offense a chance that Pete Alonso eventually seized.
In yet another critical game — a victory meaning the Mets would not have to return to Philadelphia for Game 5 — the Mets will ask Quintana to do it again.
“I’ve been in this situation before,” Quintana said, “and I just want to keep playing.”
