Neil Miller/TheNYExtra.com
The Mets came into the opener of this Subway Series sporting the hottest offense in baseball and they continued their torrid pace smacking 4 homers in a 9-7win over the Yankees.
The Mers battered Gerrit Cole smacking four homers off him with two coming off the bat of Mark Vientos while Harrison Bader and Brandon Nimmo also went yard. To the Yankees credit, they fought back against a Met bullpen missing Edwin Diaz who was serving game 1 of his 10 game suspension. Aaron Judge launched a grand slam to cut the Met lead to 9-7 but Reed Garrett rebounded to get the final 4 outs of the game.
Cole looked overmatched all night versus a Met lineup that combines power, speed and on base percentage to pound quality pitchers. Meanwhile, David Peterson pitcher only 4.1 innings but wiggled out of a bases loaded none out jam in the first by striking out the side after he loaded the bases. The Met bullpen minus Edwin Diaz, had to send 4 pitchers to the mound but got the job done against a very talented Yankee lineup.
But the story of this team is still an offense that is so deep they had a batter hitting ninth in Harrison Bader who homered off Cole and then later in the game plated a run using the stolen base to score on a JD Martinez RBI hit. And it seems the Mets love playing the Yankees here as they are 9-3 in their last 12 versus the Bronx Bombers at Citi outscoring their cross town rivals 68-53 with an impressive .845 OPS in that span.
For the Mets they could get back to .500 mark with a win on Wednesday night here against the Yankees. It will be lefthander Sean Manea going for the Mets and if the Mets succeed they will have made up 11 games in the standings since early June as they were 11 games under 500 after getting swept by the Dodgers here at Citi. And held a clubhouse players only meeting to clear the air and get the train moving in the right direction.
I would say the meeting was a success since they are 16-6 since that meeting and the offense has been tops in the sport versus some of the best starting pitchers in the sport including Gerrit Cole whom they treated like a rag doll on a June night at Citi Field.
