Mets score in ninth to beat Yankees in second game of Subway Series
Luisangel Acuna of the Mets celebrates with teammate Juan Soto after scoring a run during the ninth inning against the Yankees at Yankee Stadium on Saturday. Credit: Jim McIsaac
Chapter two in the Bronx edition of this season’s Subway Series had been taut the whole way. The Yankees and Mets each had earned a one-run lead and let it get away. With opportunities to break the game open, both had been foiled. Both had potential go-ahead runs thrown out at the plate.
The Mets finally broke through in the top of the ninth as Francisco Lindor’s sacrifice fly drove in pinch runner Luisangel Acuna for a 3-2 lead. But the Yankees' last chance Saturday also usually is their best: With two outs, Aaron Judge stepped in to face Mets closer Edwin Diaz.
Judge battled back from an 0-and-2 count to make it full before Diaz put him away with a 99-mph fastball near the top of the strike zone. The righthander retired the side in order for his 10th save as the Mets evened the series with a 3-2 victory before a sellout crowd of 47,510 at the Stadium.
“That's what you call big-league game, big-league matchup,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said. “Every pitch was intense, every play, one-run game, and then you get the matchup of Diaz-Judge. That’s what you pay for . . . For Diaz to come in in the ninth and just get the three outs with the way he did it — attacking and using all his pitches. He got [Austin] Wells on a 3-2 slider and then to get [Judge] on a 3-2 fastball up in the zone. It was really good to see the conviction in all his pitches.”
“Whenever Judge is up to bat, you’re expecting him to do something,” said Cody Bellinger, who extended his hitting streak to 12 games with a 432-foot solo home run off the back wall of the Yankees' bullpen in the sixth that tied the score at 2-2.
The Stadium crowd again made Juan Soto, who left the Yankees and signed a record $765 million contract with the crosstown Mets in the offseason, the target of its venom. Yankees starter Clarke Schmidt said the boos were so loud when Soto came to bat that he had to turn up the volume on his PitchCom. But those fans didn’t leave satisfied with a win this time.
The Mets improved to 4-1 in games in which the score is tied after eight innings and still have not lost three in a row this season.
Of the late-game successes, Mets first baseman Pete Alonso said, “It's persistence and it's sticking to the game plan. I think it's trust, trusting the guy in front of you and behind you.”
And of not falling into a losing streak, Mendoza said, “It’s 162 [games]. We know we’re good, but every team will face adversity. We’re just doing a good job of turning the page after . . . a couple tough losses.”
Starters Schmidt and Griffin Canning gave their teams a chance to win. The former allowed two runs in six innings-plus and the latter gave up two runs in 5 1/3 innings.
Schmidt had a 1-0 lead on DJ LeMahieu’s third-inning homer into the short porch in rightfield. Though he allowed a pair of runs in the fourth on Alonso's run-scoring single and Mark Vientos' sacrifice fly, he didn’t let things get away when two of his five walks loaded the bases, retiring Brett Baty on a fly to right.
Canning gave up the homers by LeMahieu and Bellinger and was lifted for Huascar Brazoban with one out in the sixth, Jasson Dominguez at third and Anthony Volpe at first after consecutive singles. Alonso fielded J.C. Escarra's grounder and threw out Dominguez at the plate for the second out and LeMahieu grounded into a forceout to end the inning.
This one also had plenty of excellent defensive plays. On three occasions, Mets third baseman Baty barehanded slow rollers and threw out runners at first. Thanks to a perfect relay from centerfielder Bellinger to shortstop Volpe to catcher Escarra, the Yankees cut down Baty at the plate as he tried to score the go-ahead run in the seventh on Tyrone Taylor's double.
“To execute a play like that, everything’s got to sync up,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “A great baseball game — it really was — and you have a play like that [keep] . . . the game in the balance there.”
In the top of the eighth, Alonso doubled off Tim Hill with one out and moved to third on a groundout before Fernando Cruz struck out Vientos. In the bottom of the inning, Mets reliever Reed Garrett allowed three walks and a double by Volpe but escaped unscathed, thanks to a double-play ball early in the inning by Paul Goldschmidt and an inning-ending lineout to right by LeMahieu as Soto made a nice running catch.
With one out in the ninth, Cruz allowed the Mets to load the bases on a walk, an infield single by Baty and a hit batsman, setting the table for Lindor’s tiebreaking sacrifice fly.
“Today was a great team win: good baserunning, good defense, good hitting, good patience,” Lindor said. “To beat a team like that, you have to do a lot of things the right way, and [this] was a good example of that.”
Roger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 to write about high schools, colleges and baseball following 20 years at the Daily News. A Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2011, he has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours.
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