Yankees And Mets Share Same Record But Differing Paths After Contrasting Weekends

The Yankees and Mets share the commonality of owning the same sparkling 70-39 record through the first weekend of August.

And they also share the commonality of becoming likely winners of the AL East and NL East divisions sometime in the middle of September.

Watching how things unfolded for the Yankees and Mets over the weekend, it was hard to tell the teams shared those traits.

In one corner there were the Mets playing a pulsating 16 hours, 20 minutes to win four of five games from the Braves. It was a series of events that widened the lead from 3 1/2 games to 6 1/2 games in the NL East and featured several notable moments.

Roughly 1,000 miles away in St. Louis, the Yankees played 10 hours, 50 minutes against the Cardinals, who these days are just as hot as the Mets and rolling nearly as well as the Yankees did into the middle of June.

These weekends could not have been any more contrasting for two teams who seemingly were headed for a second “Subway Series” and a reason for an updated version to an already existing book about the 2000 version.

While it still could happen, it doesn’t seem as much of a given as it might have been in May or June.

Over their most pulsating home weekend in years, the Mets experienced numerous notable events and only trailed once when they fell behind by eight before inching closer to a comeback win on Friday.

On Thursday, shortly after callers may have flooded talk radio airwaves to complain about a lack of names at the trade deadline, Tyler Naquin homered twice and Edwin Diaz secured the final six outs for the first time at any level of a pro career that began as a starting pitcher in the Arizona summer league in 2014.

During the time it took for Diaz to throw 28 pitches to seven hitters, the Yankees were already in downtown St. Louis, enjoying an off day and still stewing from what unfolded Wednesday. The Yankees flew to St. Louis after dropping two of three to the Seattle Mariners in games where they trailed by a combined 8-0 after the opening innings.

Concerns about Gerrit Ace being playoff ace material surfaced yet again when he allowed three homers on three different pitches to Eugenio Suarez, Carlos Santana and Jarred Kelenic (the same guy traded by the Mets for Diaz). Eventually he settled down and got through six innings but the bad optics already persisted especially since the Yankees could not do much against Luis Castillo, who auditioned for his trade from Cincinnati by no-hitting the Yankees into the sixth on July 14.

Castillo was the desired choice of fans regardless of the price but by July 29 he was off the board with the deal becoming official shortly after Cole allowed five runs in the fifth inning of an 11-5 win over Kansas City that required an eight-run eighth.

A day after Diaz’s dramatic save, the Yankees tried to use their closer Clay Holmes in the eighth inning, but it did not work out. On a game that did not exist on regular cable television, Holmes continued his trend of faltering, allowing a two-run double to Paul DeJong, who used to produce against the Mets but did it often against the Yankees.

While the Met comeback did not happen, it came close and if anything, it forced Atlanta to deploy its primary relievers with a doubleheader looming.

On Saturday, the Mets played arguably one of their best doubleheaders in team history if not their best. They earned an 8-5 victory in the day game, winning on the strength of 13 hits and one extra-base hit – a double by Francisco Lindor that nearly missed a homer.

Lindor’s key double was the closest to a homer the Mets came in the twinbill, but they swept their second doubleheader this season without going deep. It is something so rare these days the Mets last achieved it before this season in 2011 and before that had not swept a doubleheader without hitting a homer since 1998.

And then in prime time Max Scherzer was able to read the room in terms of the bullpen availability situation, striking out 11 in seven innings. It was the kind of performance that had virtually every fan on their feet especially in the middle innings and Scherzer’s latest double-digit strikeout game left teammates marveling at it.

“His consistency is unbelievable,” Alonso said. “Every time he’s got the ball in his hands, he’s the same guy and he does a lot of research on his opponent and the way he executes whether he has his A, B or C stuff is incredible. He’s one of our leaders and how he goes about is business is tremendous. So, every time he’s got the ball, we’re feeling pretty confident.”

While Scherzer was rolling, Yankee fans were experiencing one of those “why can’t our team gets guys like that moments” watching Jordan Montgomery and his trace of facial hair growth hold the Yankee offense to two hits in five innings in a game the left-hander would have pitched deeper in if he did not start feeling cramps in the heat.

The Yankee fans were feeling that way because Montgomery was a last-minute deal on Tuesday when he was sent to St. Louis for injured center fielder Harrison Bader, who is projected to return from a foot injury next month and is also projected as a significant defensive upgrade that will allow Judge to move to right field for postseason games.

A day later the contrasts were even more noticeable, the Yankees were about in the fourth inning of their four hour, 25 minute slog in St. Louis that became a 12-9 loss when Jacob deGrom took the mound at home for the first time in 13 months. He then proceeded to strike out 12 and retire the first 17 hitters, leaving the Braves to marvel at him yet again like they did on Sept. 26, 2018.

“He was really good,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said. “I’m like, good God, there’s nothing wrong with him.”

While the Mets were on their way to a 5-2 win also highlighted by the performance of Joely Rodriguez, the struggling left-handed reliever that led to demands for an outside left-handed relief help, the Yankees were wrapping up a slog that featured another ejection of Boone, a rough outing by Frankie Montas in his debut and comments about their rough patch that starting on July 9 is 16 losses in 25 games with relievers getting 11 of those defeats.

“We need to play better, to be quite frank,” Josh Donaldson said. “At the end of the day, we still feel very good about our team. It’s a little slide right now. We need to get back on track and continue playing hard.”

The Yankees did plenty to feel good about through their first 109 games, but how their next 53 unfold will create a series of good vibes or a series of concerns that may already exist.

As for the Mets, the pulsating weekend did not secure a division title since it means nothing if they fall into a slump, which is why they did what they could to publicly downplay the significance with comments such as this from Scherzer:

“It’s great to get these wins, but it’s not over yet,” Scherzer said. “We know how good they can play, and they can get hot, and we can continue to play great baseball as well. It’s great to win these games, don’t get me wrong. You want to beat them as much as you can. But it’s going to take that type of effort for the rest of the season.”