“Mets, top payroll, can't sack Dodgers on icy Flushing night”.

For the home team fans, only the results were worse than the conditions.

A crisp breeze coupled with a dipping mercury cooled the 43,883 fans who flocked to Flushing on Wednesday to watch the New York Mets play the Los Angeles Dodgers at CitiField.

However, for the second time in the first three games of the best-of-seven National League Championship Series, New York came away empty-handed.

The final score, 8-0, left the wild-card Mets trailing 2-1 with two games left in Queens.

The series could have been called the “Battle of the Bulge” – perhaps an apt description of both inflated payrolls. According to Spotrac, the Mets lead all 30 teams with $317,778,898, while the Dodgers are sixth with $241,010,117. The New York Yankees, also part of baseball's Final Four, are in second place with $309,434,607.

Players on World Series teams earn even more.

The full share awarded to members of the world champion Texas Rangers last year was $506,263.

Pride is also at stake; The Mets have won just two World Series, most recently in 1986, while the Dodgers have won six but none in one continuous season since 1988 (Los Angeles also won the World Series after the virus-shortened 2020 season).

These two teams have met four times in the postseason, but only once before in the NLCS, with the Dodgers going 4-3 in 1988 before defeating the Oakland Athletics in the World Series.

Heading into the postseason tournament, the Mets were the hottest team in the majors. After a loss on May 29, they went 67-40, a major-best winning percentage of .626.

That didn't matter Wednesday when they couldn't handle Dodgers starter Walker Buehler, who had a bloated 5.38 earned-run average during the regular season, but after Clayton Kershaw, Tyler Glasnow, Tony Gonsolin and Dustin May in Others were put on duty and none of them were able to pitch.

Even two-way star Shohei Ohtani was unavailable as a pitcher as his right elbow healed after surgery to repair his torn ACL.

Ohtani could hit, however, as he proved with a mammoth three-run home run in the eighth inning that turned a 4-0 Los Angeles lead into a runway and sent many of the ice-cold fans home.

All but assured of winning the Most Valuable Player award for the second straight year (and third overall), Ohtani hadn't struck with his usual frequency or ferocity in the playoffs. A virtual dud with the bases empty, his best performance came with men on base – like in the eighth inning on Wednesday night.

His home run was one of three hits by the Dodgers, who also received power from Max Muncy and postseason star Kiké Hernández, while four long hits from Mets batters landed in the gloves of Dodgers outfielders amid a steady headwind that blew in.

New York managed just four singles against Buehler and the LA bullpen and left eight base runners stranded. Three of those came in the second inning when Francisco Alvarez and Francisco Lindor both fanned with the bases loaded.

The collapsing Alvarez also made a throwing error that helped give the Dodgers their second run in the first.

“He’s a good hitter, man,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza told reporters who asked about Alvarez after the game. “I like that he is aggressive. And he will continue to get opportunities because he is a big part of this team.”

JD Martinez and Jose Iglesias have also fumbled, prompting Mike Vaccaro of the New York Post to recommend replacements as the series continues on Thursday.

“The series can still be saved,” he wrote. “Now Mendoza must make the difficult decisions to actually save it.”