Yankees deserve credit, but Mets bullpen shoulders much of blame in doubleheader sweep
Mets relief pitcher Edwin Diaz reacts on the mound after giving up a two-run home run to Yankees' Aaron Hicks to tie the score at 7-7 during the seventh inning of Game 1 in a doubleheader at Yankee Stadium on Sunday, Aug. 30, 2020. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
The back end of the Subway Series was all Yankees.
The redemption of Gary Sanchez and the triumphant debut of Deivi Garcia in Game 2 of the doubleheader sweep. Aaron Hicks’ dramatic homer and the stunning five-run rally in the seventh inning that propelled an improbable Game 1 comeback.
The Mets, well, they’re still getting billionaire Steve Cohen, and all things considered, that’s not a bad door prize to take back to Flushing.
Otherwise, this rapidly deteriorated into a lost weekend for Luis Rojas & Co. — made even more demoralizing as the sad-trombone follow-up to the Mets’ own doubleheader sweep Friday night. The Amed Rosario walk-off homer that allowed the unique, giddy Bronx celebration now feels like a decade ago.
By day’s end, the Yankees needed 16 innings total — an extra frame in each game — and roughly 7 1⁄2 hours to basically stay within arm’s reach of the Rays, who visit the Bronx starting Monday. They were just one strike away from losing Game 1 before Hicks smacked the tying two-run homer off — who else? — Edwin Diaz in the seventh inning. Gio Urshela stung Diaz again with an RBI single in the eighth that delivered the 8-7 win.
“It’s just very important for us to get wins,” said Hicks, who left Game 2 in the fifth inning because of cramping in both calves (he insists it’s nothing). “We need to get back into that winning spirit. Expecting to win.”
If Sanchez is back to hitting moon shots again, as he did with an eighth-inning grand slam in the 5-2 victory in Game 2, that’s a spirit-booster for sure. A day earlier, manager Aaron Boone declined to use the slumping Sanchez to pinch hit for Erik Kratz, who won the game anyway by rattling Dellin Betances into throwing a pitch to the backstop. This time Boone sent up Sanchez to hit for Kratz. We’re not sure that ball has landed yet.
“I’m excited for him,” Boone said. “He means so much to this team. I was happy to see him take the air out of one.”
Sanchez definitely deflated the Mets, who were betrayed by their bullpen in both ends of the doubleheader and now have to be worried anew going forward. Diaz’s latest failure was the lead-in to Seth Lugo’s Game 2 start, and moving Lugo to the rotation is something the Mets soon will regret, if they don’t already.
Lugo again looked great, striking out seven and allowing one earned run, but he was pulled in the fourth after 60 pitches. Subtracting Lugo from the bullpen hurts even more now that the Mets also are without Betances, who was put on the injured list Sunday morning with lat tightness — the same injury that sidelined him with the Yankees a year ago.
Lugo didn’t stick around long enough to have a meaningful impact in Game 2. But Drew Smith was on the mound in the high-leverage eighth inning and teed up the slam to Sanchez. As for Game 1, the last time the Yankees scored at least five runs to force extra innings was two decades ago, so it’s been a while. Diaz blowing a save? Unfortunately for the Mets, that’s a regular occurrence, although Jared Hughes — along with some sloppy defense from the usually reliable Andres Gimenez — started the dominos tumbling.
“Usually you don’t win many of those,” Boone said.
The odds tend to dramatically improve, however, once Diaz trots through that bullpen door. And despite all his repeated failures, he keeps tricking the Mets into trusting him, mostly because they keep trying to convince themselves he can be the closer.
But simply believing in Santa Claus doesn’t mean he’s really delivering your presents. Since Diaz showed up in Flushing, his resume for save situations: 28 saves, 10 blown saves, 5.80 ERA. One night, he is electric. The next, he blows a fuse.
“We still trust him,” Rojas said minutes after this latest implosion. “We still love his stuff.”
Diaz was dynamite when they bounced him from the closer’s role earlier this month. On Friday, Diaz struck out the side to earn his second save in Game 1 of the Mets’ doubleheader sweep.
As luck would have it, the Mets never figured to need Diaz once they entered the seventh inning of Sunday’s Game 1 with a 7-2 lead. But Gimenez’s throwing error kicked off the inning — a bad omen — and things began to steadily unravel with a two-out walk, a hit batter and Luke Voit’s check-swing two-run single through a wide-open right side. Another run scored on a wild pitch.
“The table was set for something strange to happen there,” Boone said.
Diaz jumped ahead of Hicks 1-and-2, exclusively with fastballs. Hicks laid off the only slider to get to a full count, then smoked another fastball, this one letters-high, into the seats.
And as crushing as that felt at the time for the Mets, there was more disappointment on the way.
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.
