Subway Series role reversal has Yanks, not Mets, off the rails
Yankees relief pitcher Aroldis Chapman reacts on the mound against the Angels during the ninth inning of an MLB game at Yankee Stadium on Wednesday. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
For this Subway Series, it feels as if we took the wrong train. Maybe one to the Twilight Zone.
How can it be that the team in fourth place, staring at a nine-game deficit, with an owner under siege, a general manager saying "we suck" and fans calling for the manager’s head wasn’t the Mets?
Nope. Not this time.
The dysfunctional, underachieving dumpster fire in this year’s first meeting? That role is being played by the Yankees, whose recent performance was described by general manager Brian Cashman this week as being as "bad as you can be . . . stinking to the high heavens."
And that was before the Yankees suffered their worst loss of the season, allowing seven runs in the ninth against the Angels in blowing an 8-4 lead Wednesday night, thanks in part to an epic meltdown by Aroldis Chapman.
"There’a lot of buzz around us right now — not all for good reason, obviously," manager Aaron Boone said before Friday’s Subway Series opener was postponed because of rain. "This is New York City. The greatest place to play baseball. So it’s a big deal to me."
Evidently, Boone isn’t managing for his job, based on the votes of confidence he received over the past few days from Cashman and owner Hal Steinbrenner. But given the Yankees’ pitiful state, he deserves some culpability here.
Monumental ineptitude. A volatile, unreliable closer. Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. This is all straight from the Mets’ playbook.
Or, should we say, was.
Because the visitors from Flushing rolled into the Bronx on Friday night atop the NL East, bankrolled by a new mega-billionaire owner who cracks jokes on Twitter, a front office that flies under the radar and a second-year manager in Luis Rojas whose players actually do play hard for him.
That said, the Mets have spent the past three months in various stages of disrepair, plowing through a staggering number of injuries (as many as 17 on the injured list at one point) and yet somehow keeping their grip on first place for 71 days, the longest stretch of any team this season.
On Friday, the Mets welcomed back three more in Brandon Nimmo, Jeurys Familia and Tomas Nido after losing another rotation piece, David Peterson, to right side soreness. Even though this roster is starting to better resemble the Mets we vaguely recall from a while back, they’re not operating anywhere near the preseason expectations for this group, from an offensive standpoint. The Mets entered Friday averaging 3.57 runs per game, second-to-last overall (the Pirates were at 3.49), with a .673 OPS that ranked 28th.
Yet they’ve continued to win, hosting their clubhouse dance parties and reveling in their besting of adversity — for now.
"It’s been quite a ride," Rojas said Friday afternoon. "I got to give credit from the [front] office to the players because they’ve stayed steady the whole time, and it shows how good of a family we are. We always look forward — we don’t look down or back. We’re sticking together through the challenges."
Compare that with the Yankees, who have rendered words meaningless in constantly trying to spin what has been an awful brand of baseball. Despite Boone’s nightly rites of positive affirmation, his players often look uninterested, running into outs at a league-worst rate and routinely grounding into double plays.
Unlike the Mets, who have made a habit of winning games they shouldn’t, the Yankees regularly go belly-up against inferior opponents. They also are 0-6 against their chief rival, the Red Sox, in tumbling further down in the division.
The Subway Series doesn’t hold any significant sway in the standings for these clubs. It’s mostly a PR battle, with only bragging rights at stake, and for that reason, the Yankees always have the most to lose. They’re the franchise with the 27 world titles. The Mets, in business since 1962, have just the two rings.
With such a lopsided relationship in NYC’s sibling rivalry, the Mets usually strive for saving face and maybe landing a few memorable punches before they leave the Bronx. Trying to avoid any more Luis Castillo drops or coaching staffs getting axed during their stay.
But this season, the script has flipped and the narrative has changed. The Yankees are the desperate team, a laughingstock by their lofty standards, fronted by an owner, GM and manager already making public apologies — something that traditionally doesn’t happen until November, given that they haven’t been to a World Series since 2009.
And the Mets? The worst grilling anyone got before Friday’s opener was Rojas being asked if he was relieved that they didn’t sign Trevor Bauer, who has been placed on administrative leave while assault allegations against him are investigated.
"You know what I’m happy for? That we signed Taijaun Walker," said Rojas, referring to Friday’s starter (2.38 ERA) and the player to whom the Mets pivoted when the Bauer deal fell through. "I cannot talk about what wasn’t done."
Same old Mets? Not this Subway Series. This time it’s the Yankees with all the explaining to do.
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.
