The Yankees lost the first game of their series against the Mets
The Yankees lost to the Mets 9–7 on Tuesday in the first game of the 2024 Subway Series.
They will play another game at Citi Field tonight on Wednesday and then the Subway Series will not continue until July when the Yankees will play the Mets in the Bronx on July 23 and 24. That series in July against the Mets will be in the middle of playing 11 consecutive series in the eastern time zone that spans from before the All-Star break to after.
The Mets have been playing very well recently and the Yankees have not. The Mets were 11 games under .500 on May 29 are now just one game under .500 after going 16–6 in their last 22 games. Since Grimace the McDonald’s mascot threw out the first pitch on June 12, the Mets have gone 10–2 and have scored at least five runs in eight of those 12 games. They have scored at least nine runs five times in those 12 game and have averaged 7.25 runs in the 12 games. The Mets are now just 1.5 games out of the third wild card spot in the NL after being 6.0 games out on May 29.
On the other hand, the Yankees have lost their last three series and need to win tonight to prevent losing four series in a row. They were due to cool off a little since the Yankees lost only three of their first 22 series this season before this recent stretch.
The Yankees have gone 3–8 in their last 11 games. In their last 11 games, the Yankees have lost five of the eight games by two runs or less, which proves they are still being competitive. The Yankees were 28 games above .500 on June 12 and are now 23 games above .500. Even though the Yankees have gone 3–8 in their last 11 games they still have a two game lead for first place in the AL East over the Orioles, who have lost five games in a row and have gone 4–8 in their last 12 games. The Orioles are struggling at the right time and have areas to improve just like the Yankees, but the Orioles have the best minor league system in the league so they will be able to trade virtually anyone who is available.
Gerrit Cole really struggled in this game against the Mets in his second game of the season since coming off of the injured list. He allowed six earned runs in 4.0 innings with seven hits, four homers and four walks. Cole’s four homers allowed were his most in a start since he allowed three homers on September 13, 2022 at Fenway Park. He allowed two homers or less in all of his starts during his 2023 season when he won the Cy Young.
The Mets were really on top of and hitting Cole’s high fastball very well. Cole’s fastball velocity was more than two mph slower in the third inning than it was in the first inning. It’s not normal for his velocity to dip like that in the third inning.
This was only Cole’s second career start without a strikeout and the other was in 2016 when he was in his fourth MLB season with the Pirates. Cole is the first pitcher in Yankees history to allow at least four homers, at least four walks and strike out no hitters in a game. That is not a category that Cole wanted to be first in. Cole is such a smart and elite pitcher that he should be able to bounce back in his next start especially since he pitched well overall in his first start last week.
On the first pitch Cole threw in the fourth, Mark Vientos hit a homer that bounced off of the top of the wall in right center into the bullpen. That was Vientos’s second homer of the game and the fourth run Cole had allowed. Vientos has four homers in his last five games and would be fourth in the NL in SLG% if he had enough at-bats to qualify.
A few batters after Vientos’s homer in the fourth, Brandon Nimmo hit a 382 foot 2-run homer on a changeup to make the score 6–0. Nothing was really working for Cole. Nimmo, who has played the first nine seasons of his career with the Mets, pulled the ball to right field and that extended his hitting streak to 10 consecutive games. Nimmo is 17-41 (.415) in his last 10 games after going 3–21 in his previous five games. Nimmo adjusted well on the changeup. Three of the four Mets homers came off Cole’s fastball.
“It was disappointing,” Cole said about his performance. I didn’t give us a good chance to win tonight. I did not execute enough good pitches and kind of dug us in a hole. I did not have great command of my fastball throughout the evening”
Aaron Judge went 2–3 with a grand slam and an RBI double in this game against the Metes. He hit his seventh grand slam of his career. Judge now has a very impressive 23 homers and 57 RBI in his last 45 games. Judge did all he could to get the Yankees a win since drove in five of the team’s nine runs in this game. Judge hit the seventh overall grand slam by a Yankee against the Mets. The others were hit by Gary Sanchez, Brett Gardner, Mark Teixeira, Alex Rodriguez and Hideki Matsui (twice). Rodriguez has hit the most grand slams in MLB history with 25 and Manny Machado has the most grand slams among active players with 12. .
Yankees got on the scoreboard to start 5th inning when Soto hit a deep line drive homer into the Mets bullpen. That was the best contact he has had since he sat the 3-game Dodgers series a little more than two weeks ago with his minor injury. The Yankees hit into a double play off of relief pitcher Dedniel Nunez to end the 5th inning. Soto had been struggling recently since in his previous seven games he was 3–22 with no extra base hits. However, it was a positive that he did have nine walks in those seven games, which means he was still getting on base a lot.
The Mets scored a run with Jeff McNeil batting in the 6th inning to make the score 7–1 on a grounder that went under Gleyber Torres’s glove with the infield playing shallow. That was a play Torres should have made.
“I think it’s bad,” Torres said when asked to Judge the first half of his season. “I have to figure out how to get better. Working really hard.”
After that error by Torres that scored the Mets seventh run, Phil Bickford, who previously pitched in 25 games for the Mets this season after beginning the season with the Dodgers, was taken out of the game. JD Martinez then hit a hanging slider to deep center off of Mike Tonkin for a double to make the score 8–1. Martinez has been hitting well this month since in his 20 games in June he has a .299 average, a .393 OBP, a .952 OPS, four homers and 19 RBI.
Martinez is an RBI machine since he has had at least 99 RBI in five of the last six seasons (not including the 2020 season) with a career-high of 130 in 2018, which led the AL. He won a Silver Slugger and finished fourth in MVP voting in 2018 to help the Red Sox win the World Series. Since winning the World Series in 2018, the Red Sox have finished in last place in the AL East in three of the five seasons.
Tim Hill, who pitched the seventh inning, is sidearm pitcher and his release height is only 2 feel 11 inches off ground and he does good job hiding the ball until his release. Hill was the first pitcher to retire the side in order of the game for the Yankees.
The Mets had a 9–1 lead after the sixth inning but then after the Yankees scored six unanswered runs the score was 9–7 after the top of the eighth inning.
Judge, who is number 99, hit a 390 foot grand slam on a 99 mph fastball in the eighth inning. The ball kept carrying and when it landed the score was 9–7 in the 8th inning with two outs.
That was his 29th homer and 75th RBI in his 79 games this season, which means he impressively almost has as many RBI as games played this late into the season. Judge has been the AL MVP so far this season since he leads the league with his 29 homers (four more than second place Gunnar Henderson), 79 RBI, 198 total bases, 23 doubles, .700 SLG% (Henderson is in second place with a .607 SLG%) and his 1.128 OPS. He is in second place in WAR (5.6), second place in OBP (Soto is in first place) and his .304 average puts him in third place (Soto’s .305 average is in second place).
Harrison Bader, who played the last few months of 2022 and the 2023 season with the Yankees, thought he would be able to catch Judge’s homer but then it was out of his reach and a Yankee relief pitcher caught it in the bullpen. It was his 7th career grand slam.
Before Judge’s grand slam in the 8th inning, Austin Wells had an RBI single to score Ben Rice.
The Yankees almost pulled off the epic comeback but fell two runs short of tying the game. They were just 2–10 with runners in scoring position, which hurt their chance of scoring more runs, they grounded into one double play (J.D. Davis) and in the ninth inning Reed Garrett retired the side in order with DJ LeMahieu striking out to end the game. Judge and Soto combined to go 3–6 with two homers, six RBI and zero strikeouts. The rest of the lineup went 4–28 with zero extra base hits and 12 strikeouts.
Rice went 1–2 in this game after pinch hitting for Davis and he has hit well since being called up from Triple-A as he is 6–19 (.316) with a .391 OBP in his seven games. He does not have an extra base hit yet but that will likely come soon.
LeMahieu, who should not be playing most games at third base since he is struggling so much on offense, went 0–4 and is 4–34 in his last 10 games. LeMahieu has a .174 average in his 21 games this season and zero of his 12 hits this season have been extra base hits. LeMahieu is mainly hitting ground balls and isn’t showing signs of improvement. Aaron Boone is being patient with LeMahieu and has said that he is playing regularly at third since he is better defensively than Oswaldo Cabrera.
Cabrera has a 0.4 WAR and a .620 OPS in his 60 games this season but LeMahieu has a -0.5 WAR and a .449 OPS in his 22 games. Cabrera has a .241 average in his 11 games in June, which is not a good average, but it is still a good bit better than LeMahieu’s and there is a chance he could have a hot streak like he did to begin the season and in May when he had three multi hit games in a five game span.
Giancarlo Stanton was top 10 in AL in homers and RBI when he went on injured list on Saturday. The Yankees will miss his production in the lineup and especially his recent production since he was on a 10-game hitting streak and was 14–37 with a double, three homers and nine RBI in those 10 games.
