Much more to this game than just Juan Soto
Griffin Canning #46 of the New York Mets pitches during the first inning against the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium on Saturday, May 17, 2025. Credit: Jim McIsaac
You wouldn’t know it in the days leading up to this Subway Series, but the Mets did take plenty of players not named Juan Soto to the Bronx for this weekend’s showdown at Yankee Stadium.
And with so much attention focused on Soto through the first 48 hours of his ultra-hyped homecoming, it was easy to lose sight of this being a business trip for the Mets rather than a “Survivor” episode for their $765 million rightfielder.
That helps explain why Carlos Mendoza & Co. looked a bit overwhelmed in Friday night’s series-opening loss, which turned out to be a giddy Soto-stomping celebration for everyone wearing pinstripes, the sellout crowd included. Filtering the baseball from the ocean of boos added another degree of difficulty, and the Yankees earned some measure of revenge for Soto’s betrayal, at least enough to serve their paying customers for an evening.
On Saturday, however, in Game 2 of this Soto Series, the Mets got their mojo back. They shut down the supernatural Aaron Judge (0-for-5, three strikeouts) to a degree that only two other teams have done this season and rallied late with Francisco Lindor’s ninth-inning sacrifice fly for a 3-2 victory that disappointed another sellout crowd (47,510) hoping to add a series win to an otherwise satisfying afternoon of Soto bashing.
“Today was a great team win,” Lindor said. “To beat a team like that, you have to do a lot of things the right way. Today was a good example of that.”
The Mets improved to 5-0 in games tied after six innings, and that's where this one was when starter Griiffin Canning teed up a leadoff homer by Cody Bellinger in the sixth, a 432-foot bomb that caromed off the back wall of the Yankees’ bullpen. But there’s a reason why the Mets are perfect in those late scenarios. They lead the majors with an .833 OPS after the sixth and their 87 runs scored are second only to the Diamondbacks.
“To be honest, I think it’s persistence and I think it’s sticking to the game plan,” Pete Alonso said. “And I think it’s trust — trusting the guy in front of you and behind you. And when it’s your turn in the box or whenever the ball is hit to you, you trust your own preparedness. I think every single guy trusts themselves and trusts their teammates, so I think that’s huge, especially in the late innings. There’s no second-guessing. Everyone has that connectedness.”
Alonso did his part, collecting his 37th RBI with a run-scoring single that tied the score at 1 in the fourth inning. But it was Soto who later helped push the go-ahead run across in a somewhat unconventional manner — for him, anyway.
Soto hasn’t made much noise at the plate this weekend. He’s 1-for-6 with four walks in this series. But after singling in the fourth and moving to second on Alonso’s hit, Soto swiped third base to set up Mark Vientos’ sacrifice fly. It was Soto’s third stolen base in the past three games — the longest streak of his career — and he’s clipped the last two without even drawing a throw. That already puts him at five stolen bases total (his single-season best is 12, done twice) and now is giving opposing teams something else to think about, which can't hurt, given that his overall production is still lagging a bit.
Relying on Soto’s feet was just more resourcefulness from the Mets, a first-place team that excels at winning in the margins as well as overcoming a few missteps along the way. They’ve managed to split the first two games of the Subway Series despite going 3-for-18 (.167) with runners in scoring position and getting burned on a questionable send Saturday that had Brett Baty gunned down at the plate in the seventh inning.
It was a calculated risk, having the less-than-speedy Baty try to score from first on Tyrone Taylor’s double to deep left-center. But with one out and the top of the order on deck, the Mets pushed their luck — and paid for it when Cody Bellinger handled the ball rather than Jasson Dominguez, then completed a perfect relay with shortstop Anthony Volpe to the plate.
Typically, those miscues are tough to recover from. But not for these Mets, who loaded the bases in the ninth on a walk, Baty’s infield single and a hit batsman. Who better to have up next than Lindor, whose sacrifice fly marked the third time this season he’s given the Mets the lead in the ninth inning or later (the other two were walk-offs — a sacrifice fly and a homer).
“It’s just quality at-bats after quality at-bats,” Lindor said. “No one is trying to be the hero.”
Regardless, Lindor is very accomplished in that hero’s role, and he had plenty of help in those late innings. Reed Garrett stranded the bases loaded in the eighth to make sure Lindor would get that shot, and closer Edwin Diaz protected the winning run in dramatic fashion.
Diaz struck out pinch hitter Austin Wells on a down-and-in 3-and-2 slider that he tipped into Francisco Alvarez's glove, got Ben Rice on a broken-bat pop to third and then had to face Judge, only the most dangerous bat on the planet. No matter. Diaz attacked him with a barrage of sliders and mixed in one 100-mph fastball (for a two-strike foul) before whiffing Judge with an up-and-in 97-mph heater on a 3-and-2 pitch.
“That’s what you pay for,” Mendoza said, “to come and watch a big-league game when you got two teams with a lot of superstars.”
Consider Saturday’s matinee a reminder that Soto was only one of them. Not the whole show.
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.
