The Yankees beat the Mets on Wednesday night for their third consecutive win
The Yankees defeated their crosstown rival, the Mets, 5–3 on Wednesday night at Citi Field for the third consecutive win against the Mets. The Yankees had four different players drive in at least one run but not player on offense was more important than Didi Gregorius.
The Yankees are still 4.5 games behind the Red Sox in the AL East due to Boston’s comeback win in the 9th inning against the St. Louis Cardinals. This win was important for the Yankees because the Los Angeles Angels, who have the second wild card spot, win as well. The Yankees still have a three-game cushion for the first wild card spot.
On David Robertson’s 23 pitch of the 9th he struck out Rene Rivera on an 92 mph curveball. He was the closer tonight because Aroldis Chapman and Dellin Betances were both not available.
Gregorius gave the Yankees the lead for good, 5–3, on a fastball that he sent to deep right for a double that drove in Ronald Torreyes and Jacoby Ellsbury.
The shortstop is having an outstanding overall season. He didn’t play his first game until April 28 due to injury, and his current 2017 numbers of .308, 18 homers and 58 RBI equal out to a .309 average, 31 homers and 99 RBI over a full 162 game season.
Before David Robertson’s first Yankee save since the 2014 season, Adam Warren pitched the previous two innings while only allowing one hit and striking out three. Warren has been very valuable piece of the bullpen as his 1.73 ERA demonstrates. According to the YES Network, in his last 24 games, Warren has pitched 27.2 innings and has a minuscule 0.65 ERA, an opponents batting average of .147 and a K/BB of 27/5.
This game featured three ties and four different lead changes. Yoenis Cespedes hit a sacrifice fly in the first inning to give the Mets a 1–0 lead. The Yankees tied the score in the second on Garrett Cooper’s ground out to third that scored Chase Headley and then would take the lead on Aaron Judge’s towering homer in the fourth inning for his 37th round tripper of the season and 80th RBI.
Judge joined Cespedes as the only two players to homer into the third deck of Citi Field. His long blast was so obvious that Cespedes didn’t even move from his position in left field. Judge’s 37 homers are two more than anyone else has hit in the American League, and his 2–5 performance was his first multi-hit game since he went 2–4 on July 18. Judge is on a modest four-game hitting streak with two homers and two RBI, which could be a sign that he is breaking out of his slump.
The other Yankees with multi-hit games were Headley and Torreyes. With the game tied at two in the sixth after Rene Rivera hit a homer to make the score 2–2, Headley hit a sacrifice fly to center to score Judge to make the score 3–2. This was Headley’s 46th RBI and he was able to improve his batting average to a solid .274.
Jaime Garcia, the starting pitcher for the Yankees, did not pitch well but he did keep the team in the game. Garcia only lasted 5.1 innings while allowing a homer, three earned runs, five hits and three walks. In his three starts with the Yankees, he has combined to pitch 15.2 innings while allowing 11 earned runs, 17 hits, three homers and 10 walks.
Garcia is due to give the team more length as he hasn’t pitched 6.0 innings or more in any of his three starts after throwing at least 6.0 innings in his previous five starts before being traded to the Yankees.
The Yankees will look to sweep their four consecutive games against the Mets when the end their two-game set at Citi Field Thursday night at 7:10 p.m.
