Mets Continue to Dominate Subway Series With Third Straight Win

Aaron Boone hit a new low with the non-competitive lineup he put together for the resumption of the Subway Series against the Mets, this time at Yankee Stadium. Not surprisingly, the Yankees did nothing on offense and lost 3-2, their third straight defeat at the hands of their crosstown rival. George Steinbrenner must be looking down from the heavens with smoke billowing from his ears. Lets get to it.

July 23: Mets 3, Yankees 2

When the Yankees’ lineup was released around two hours before first pitch Tuesday, I had to rub my eyes to make sure I was reading it properly.

Aaron Boone, or whoever is making these absurd lineup decisions, actually wrote Jahmai Jones’ name in the leadoff spot as the DH. A player who is so bad, he had only 44 plate appearances all season for a team with a lineup as lame as the Yankees. Jones had never batted higher than fifth in any MLB game he has played.

Oh, Boone was just betting started. He slotted JD Davis into the cleanup spot. Davis hadn’t played since July 4 because he missed a few games with the flu, and then because he sucks and there was never a reason to play him. Yet Boone had him at first base and batted him fourth. Boone went with rookie catcher Carlos Narvaez, who was just called up last weekend, to catch and bat eighth. And he also continued to trot out DJ LeMahieu at third and penciled him into the 9-hole.

Boone constructed his lineup this way, he said, because the Mets were throwing lefty Jose Quintana and he felt he wanted to give lefty swingers Ben Rice, Austin Wells and Trent Grisham (Aaron Judge played center field) a day off.

How the hell did Boone think the Yankees could beat the Mets at Yankee Stadium with this trash configuration? Even Jack Curry, who I respect as a writer and broadcaster, questioned it postgame on YES, even though the edict for he and Bob Ley - because the Yankees own YES - is to find ways to make excuses for things Boone does, and games the Yankees lose. Curry couldn’t bite his tongue.

Jones and Davis, literally two of the most useless players on the roster, are the two players Boone decided to bat in front of Juan Soto and behind Aaron Judge. The result? They were 0-for-6 with four strikeouts and one ground out double play. Meanwhile, Quintana had to be laughing to himself because he handled Soto who was 0-for-3 against him, and he walked Judge all three times he faced him, and they were clearly intentional.

Last week in a text chain with some of his old Yankee buddies, Luis Severino was getting teased because for the second series against his old team, he wouldn’t be pitching for the Mets. Severino fired back something to effect of why would I be afraid of the Yankees, you have only two good hitters and I’d just walk them.

Well, the Mets, and particularly Quintana, took that to heart. “I know how hot (Judge) is right now, and I’ll take my chances to face Davis,” Quintana said. “I think the big challenge was to get Soto out before that and get more room to pitch to Judge.”

Not that it mattered because no one else did anything as the Yankees were once again feeble with runners in scoring position, 1-for-9 which led to 11 men left on base. Soto finished 0-for-4 with a walk while Judge walked four times (and never scored) and then when he had a chance to do something big, he struck out looking in the ninth with Soto at first.

Afterward, Judge granted reporters his nightly say nothing, put you to sleep interview, remarking,

“Today we didn’t get the win, but we’ve got to move on. We’ve got another big one tomorrow.”

The Yankees are running out of tomorrows.

Here are my observations:

➤ Luis Gil wasn’t great, but this was still the 13th time this season where he allowed one or zero runs. The only two rookies who had more such games were Russ Ford (16 in 1910) and Stan Bahnsen (14 in 1968).

➤ The problem for Gil is that he only made it through five innings because his pitch count soared to 91. He got out of a second and third jam in the third inning by retiring Brandon Nimmo, but he wasn’t as luck in the fifth. Three straight singles loaded the bases with no outs and he forced in a run when he hit Francisco Lindor with a pitch. However, he did a good job limiting the damage by getting Nimmo and JD Martinez to leave the bases loaded. He gave the Yankees a chance, but their bullpen failed, as did the offense. As usual.

➤ Michael Tonkin has been so good for the Yankees, but he wasn’t in this game. He must really despise the Mets right now because not only did they DFA him twice early in the season, they beat him up in the sixth as Pete Alonso doubled and Jeff McNeil hit a two-run homer which decided the game. Luke Weaver, who has struggled a little lately, pitched an adventurous eighth as he loaded the bases with one out but came back to whiff two to keep it a 3-2 game. Again, not that it mattered with this lineup.

➤ The only Yankee runs came on a solo homer by Gleyber Torres in the second, and in the sixth, Anthony Volpe led off with a single and scored on a double by Alex Verdugo, his second RBI in his last 12 games so that was shocking.

➤ That made up for Verdugo’s boneheaded bunt in the fourth which helped kill a scoring chance. Bunting is stupid 99% of the time, I’ll never change my mind on that because it’s a wasted out, especially for the Yankees who can’t afford to waste outs. Volpe singled and Torres walked with no outs, and Verdugo just gave the Mets a free out. Yes, he moved the runners up a base, and that would be fine if the Yankees had anyone coming up who could get them home. But they had Narvaez and LeMahieu and, shocker, both failed and the Yankees didn’t score. As I said, bunting is stupid 99% of the time and that 1% would be with the game on the line, and capable hitters coming up.

➤ This loss ensured that the Yankees will not win a home series for the seventh time in a row. That hasn’t happened since July-August 1991. They are now just 27-22 at home, and they are 11-14 in one-run games, a reflection on the manager.

⚾ The Orioles continued to struggle and they lost 6-3 to the awful Marlins down in Miami so the Yankees continue to trail in the AL East by just 1.5 games, though it’s three games in the loss column. Miami got to Albert Suarez for four runs in the second as Jazz Chisholm, who has been rumored to be a Yankees’ trade deadline target, had a two-run double. Suarez then got hit by a liner and had to leave the game, and second baseman Jorge Mateo had to come out after he collided with shortstop Gunnar Henderson as they both dove trying to field a grounder up the middle.

The Orioles are so much better than the Yankees, but they’re also a very young team with a clear deficiency in the starting rotation. The problem, though, is they have such a great farm system that they’ll be able to acquire any starting pitcher, or two, they desire to fix that problem. The Yankees don’t have nearly enough trade chips to operate with, especially if Brian Cashman refuses to deal Jasson Dominguez and Spencer Jones.

⚾ Pirates phenom Paul Skenes finally suffered his first MLB loss as the Pirates dropped a 2-1 decision to the Cardinals in Pittsburgh, though Skenes sure didn’t deserve it. He pitched a career-most 8.1 innings and gave up the two runs on just four hits with no walks while striking out eight. Nolan Arenado hit a solo homer off him in the fifth, and after the Pirates tied it in the eighth, manager Derek Shelton let Skenes start the ninth because his pitch count was only 91 and it backfired as Michael Siani doubled and scored on a single by Alec Burleson.

“The complicated thing there is when I come out with no-hitters or whatever in the sixth or seventh inning (that’s happened twice already), the reason I’m coming out in the sixth or seventh at 100 pitches is because I had some longer innings,” said Skenes, whose ERA is 1.93. “These were relatively quick. Low-stress, low-pressure innings kind of allowed me to keep going.”

⚾ The Red Sox ended their four-game losing streak with a 6-0 victory in Colorado, thus allowing them to creep back to within 4.5 games of the Yankees with a big three-game set looming between the teams this weekend in Fenway. Cooper Criswell threw seven shutout innings for Boston and Tyler O’Neill hit a pair of home runs. The Red Sox being good again was not something I was anticipating in 2024. I thought we’d have at least one more year of them flailing around in last place in the AL East.

⚾ Houston’s hot streak, which has propelled it into first place in the AL West, has hit a snag in Oakland of all places. The A’s won their second straight, this time 8-2 as they hit five home runs. Lawrence Butler had one of the homers and also doubled and tripled, missing the cycle because he couldn’t get a measly single.

⚾ The Astros remained in the top spot because the slumping Mariners, who have a worse offense than the Yankees right now, lost 5-1 to the Angels. Seattle has lost seven of eight games and has scored two runs or fewer in six of those losses.

⚾ Cleveland’s once sizable lead in the AL Central had shrunk to four games over the Twins, but the Guardians pushed it back to five as they snapped their three-game losing streak with a 5-4 win over the Tigers. Meanwhile, the Twins got shutout 3-0 by the Phillies as Zack Wheeler threw seven shutout innings and Minnesota had only three hits.

⚾ Also in the AL Central, the Royals have been playing great and they had a chance to leapfrog the Twins and move into second but their four-game win streak ended with a 6-2 loss to the Diamondbacks. Ex-Yankee Jordan Montgomery - who was having a terrible season and then missed a month with an injury - came off the IL and pitched five strong innings for Arizona and Ketel Marte had two hits and scored three runs.