Struggling Yankees No Match for Red-Hot Mets in Subway Series Opener

The score made this seem like it was a competitive game, but don’t be fooled. It was not. The Mets cruised past the sagging Yankees to win the first game of the Subway Series, and the biggest concern wasn’t even how terrible the Yankees played - it was about what the hell was up with Gerrit Cole who had absolutely nothing. Down in Box Score Briefs, the Guardians continue to amaze, gross stuff in Cincinnati, the Blue Jays finally won, but so did the Rays. Also, a warning that tomorrow’s newsletter will not arrive at 7:30 because I have a very late night at Citi Field and won’t be able to get it done by then. Lets get to it.

June 25: Mets 9, Yankees 7

I tried to get a headstart on the newsletter last night and started to write a rip job of the Yankees for their deplorable performance when they were down 9-1 after six innings in the first game of the Subway Series at Citi Field. We sports writers love blowouts because we can start writing early.

And this was going to be a beauty, let me tell you. But then Aaron Judge ruined it with his grand slam which cut the deficit to 9-7 in the eighth inning. While I still had no doubt that the Yankees were going to lose because Alex Verdugo and DJ LeMahieu were two of the three batters scheduled to hit in the ninth inning - I wasn’t wrong about that - the Yankees’ faux rally forced me to do a control+alt+delete on my story because what I had written wasn’t going to work.

Damn you, Judge. All my work wasted with one swing of the bat. Life of a sports writer because believe me, this stuff happens all the time in my profession because sports aren’t scripted and they unfold in real time.

I’ll give you a brief taste, though. Originally, I wrote about laughing in my car as I was driving home from the ballpark in Rochester and listening to the Yankees on the radio. This week’s play-by-play man, Emanuel Barberi, said during the sixth inning that the Yankees, down 6-1 at that time, were “still in it” and needed to “keep it right there” at 6-1.

My thought was come on dude, read the room. Given the way the offense was going, the Yankees weren’t “in it.” But then Barberi doubled down when the Mets made it 7-1 as he said the Mets were “in danger of blowing the game open.” That’s when I laughed because, as I said, the game was already blown open. So when I got home, I started pounding on my keyboard.

Ah, but as it turned out the three runs the Mets went on to score proved to be difference because the Yankees did get back in it when they scored one in the seventh and five in the eighth to make it look closer than it actually was. As I said, damn you, Judge.

Hey, bottom line is this: Forget that score. The Yankees were horrible in this game in every way.

Folks, this team is in a world of trouble right now. Ignore the record, ignore the fact that Baltimore has shockingly lost five in a row and can’t leapfrog the sagging the Yankees who are so ripe to be overtaken. As we reach the exact midway point of the season, game No. 81, the Yankees are a sinking ship which is what happens when you can’t pitch, you can’t hit, and you can’t field.

All three of those things were a problem Tuesday and all I can say is welcome back to 2023. Carlos Mendoza, who was Aaron Boone’s bench coach until he took the Mets managerial job this year, had to be sitting in his dugout thinking to himself, “Yeah, I’ve seen this shit show before.”

I’ll be at Citi Field tonight with my son, Holden. I texted him last night and asked him if we could sell our tickets and go see a Broadway show instead. He texted back saying he at a ballgame watching a team that has a fighting chance, the Yankees’ Single-A affiliate, Hudson Valley. We’re going to persevere and hope the Yankees make the night worthwhile with Luis Gil on the mound.

Here are my observations:

➤ Gerrit Cole’s second start of the season was, in a word, horrible. Wow, that was stunning to watch him pitch as terribly as he did in this game. Four innings, six runs allowed thanks to four home runs with four walks and no strikeouts. This was just the second time Cole has allowed at least four homers; he gave up five on June 9, 2022 at Minnesota. And it was also just the second time in his career he did not record a strikeout. “Disappointing,” said Cole, who threw 72 pitches, many of them with decreased velocity which certainly raised concerns about the health of his arm. “I didn’t really give us a good chance to win tonight. Didn’t execute enough good pitches as a whole.”

➤ This was the first time a Yankee pitcher allowed four walks and four homers in the same game since Roger Clemens in 2003 on a night when his mother threw out the first pitch at Yankee Stadium. After that game Clemens told reporters, “They should have let her stay on the mound. It’s a bad night when your mother has better stuff than you. She’ll let me know about it, too.” Clemens’ stuff couldn’t have been any worse than Cole’s.

➤ You knew in the first inning that disaster was looming. Francisco Lindor ripped Cole’s third pitch for a double and he walked Brandon Nimmo. When JD Martinez grounded into a double play it looked like Cole would escape, but then he just lost it. He walked Pete Alonso and Francisco Alvarez and gave up an RBI single to Tyrone Taylor. He was lucky it wasn’t a two-run knock because Verdugo threw out Alonso at the plate. Then in the second, Cole gave up homers to Mark Vientos and ex-Yankee Harrison Bader, and in the fourth he got tagged for a solo homer by Vientos and a two-run shot by Brandon Nimmo that made it 6-0.

➤ All of that came after a top of the first for the Yankees that defied description. Anthony Volpe singled and Juan Soto and Aaron Judge walked against lefty David Peterson, giving the Yankees a great chance to jump on top. And then in succession, Gleyber Torres, Verdugo and newly-signed JD Davis struck out and the Yankees got nothing. Simply incredible, especially against Peterson who made his season debut on May 29 and had struck out only 12 men in his first 22 innings this season.

➤ Davis fit right in as he had one hell of a miserable Yankee debut. He struck out looking in his first two at bats and grounded into a double play in his third before being pinch hit for in the eighth inning.

➤ The lineup that Boone used for this game was laughable. Torres batted cleanup with the slumping Verdugo moving down to No. 5. Then it was Davis at first base, the utterly useless DJ LeMahieu playing third and batting seventh, Jahmai Jones as the DH (truly unbelievable that this guy is in the majors let alone on the Yankees and starting), and Jose Trevino was ninth. That group of six players went 0-for-20 with nine strikeouts.

➤ How did the Yankees score five runs in the eighth with those bums? Easy, Boone used pinch hitters, the guys who should have been playing in the first place. Ben Rice started it with a single batting for Davis against righty Adam Ottavino. After LeMahieu made his latest out, Trent Grisham pinch hit for Jones and walked (this is how bad the lineup is right now when Grisham is a better hitting option than the stiff he’s replacing). Then Austin Wells pinch hit for Trevino and hit an RBI single off Danny Young. Volpe whiffed but Soto walked so Reid Garrett relieved and Judge tagged him for the grand slam.

➤ Torres is already mentally packing his bags, knowing there’s no way in hell he’s going to be a Yankee in 2025. The Yankees ought to finish the packing and send him on his way today. He was so awful in this game that short of cutting him, Boone should bench him for a week. After his first-inning strikeout, struck out in the third, walked in the fifth (yay), made an egregious error in the sixth that allowed a run to score, flied out with a man on second base in the seventh, and then didn’t run out a grounder right after Judge’s grand slam to end the eighth. Seriously, all that happened. Couldn’t hit, couldn’t field, couldn’t run.

⚾ What the Guardians are doing in the first half of the season has been nothing short of shocking. There is virtually no one who knows anything about baseball who forecast that this team, under first-year and totally unproven manager Stephen Vogt, would be sitting here with the best record in the American League and second-best in MLB. No one.

Last night they beat the Orioles 10-8 for their seventh straight win and Baltimore’s fifth straight loss, so here they are, somehow at an MLB-best 51-26 (19-9 against teams above .500) with a run differential of 105 and now nine games ahead of the second-place Twins. Cleveland has hit 90 home runs which is ninth-most in MLB on the heels of 2023 when it ranked dead last with just 124. Seriously, it’s stunning.

Leadoff hitter Steven Kwan, back from a month off due to injury, would be leading MLB by miles in batting average (.385) if he had enough at bats to qualify for the leaderboard, though it’s only a matter of time before he does. Jose Ramirez has 72 RBI to trail only Aaron Judge’s 75, and he has 21 homers while Josh Naylor has 20 to rank fourth and fifth in the majors.

And then there’s the pitching staff. The Guardians haven’t gotten great starting pitcher and they miss ace Shane Bieber who’s out for the year, but their 2.34 bullpen ERA ranks No. 1, as does their 1.010 WHIP. Emmanuel Clase (0.70 ERA, MLB-high 25 saves), Hunter Gaddis, Cade Smith and Tim Herrin all have ERA’s under 1.75. We didn’t think much of it at the time, but the Yankees winning two of three in Cleveland back in April sure looks a lot better now than it did then.

⚾ In Cincinnati, Reds pitcher Hunter Greene barfed on the mound in the top of the first inning, stayed in the game after his mess was cleaned up, but then he made more of a mess shortly thereafter by giving up a two-run homer to Bryan Reynolds to start the Pirates on their way to a 9-5 victory. Greene lasted four innings but gave up six runs, while Reynolds’ homer extended his hitting streak to 22 games, longest in the majors this year.

⚾ There was a great pitching matchup in Philadelphia and Detroit’s Tarik Skubal got the best of the Phillies’ Ranger Suarez. The Tigers won 4-1 as Skubal threw seven shutout innings allowing just three hits with seven strikeouts, lowering his ERA to 2.32. Suarez, who still leads MLB with a 2.01 ERA, gave up all four runs tying his season high, all of them coming in the sixth inning when Detroit strung together five hits including an RBI triple by Riley Greene and a two-run single by Andy Ibanez. The loss dropped the Phillies to 52-27 and they wake up today not having MLB’s best record, the first time that has happened in quite a while.

⚾ The Blue Jays ended their seven-game losing streak and cooled off the red-hot Red Sox 9-4. One night after blowing a 6-2 lead by giving up four runs in the eighth and then having Jarren Duran walk it off for Boston in the ninth, this time Toronto built a 9-2 lead and was able to hold on. The Jays exploded for seven runs in the third off Bryan Bello who is one of the few Red Sox having a terrible year. Vlad Guerrero had a two-run double and George Springer a two-run homer. Even with the loss, the Red Sox are within 8.5 games of the Yankees after they were 14 back just two weeks ago.

⚾ The ever-annoying Rays blew out the Mariners 11-3 so now they’re back to .500 at 40-40 and have won three in a row. They’re still 11.5 back, but they are the Rays and if there’s one thing we know, never count these pains in the ass out.

⚾ The Cubs continue to shit the bed. On Monday, the Giants held a pre-game ceremony to honor the late Willie Mays in their first home game since he passed last week. Then they rallied for three runs in the bottom of the ninth to beat the Cubs 5-4, the winner coming on a bases-loaded walk. Tuesday, the Giants won 5-1 as Chicago’s horrible offense managed just four hits. The Cubs now sit last in the NL Central at 37-43, they’re 25th in MLB in team average at .229, and $177 million shortstop Dansby Swanson has a .292 on-base percentage.