Plan A, in all likelihood, was not to have Jake Diekman [1] face Juan Soto [2] and Aaron Judge [3] with the Mets clinging to a smidge of a one-run lead. You could hear that judgment in Gary Cohen’s voice as WPIX went to the break before the bottom of the ninth at Yankee Stadium. You probably heard it expressed by someone on your own couch, or from a neighboring barstool, or from a friendly Mets fan or philosophically inclined Yankee fan if you were at the stadium in the Bronx.
But there was so much that led to that pass. This was a classic game, with riveting confrontations, agonizing near-misses, intriguing connections and plenty of strategy to chew over. And yes, I would have said so even if the outcome had been different, though I’d have offered that assessment with a lot less pleasure.
Jose Quintana [4] was craftily maddening for the Mets, knowing exactly which Yankee hitters he didn’t want to face and which ones he did. In the former category went Judge, whom Quintana walked in the first, third and fifth; in the latter category you found poor J.D. Davis [5], whom Quintana struck out twice and once coaxed to hit into a double play, ending all three innings in which Judge had been bypassed. (By the way, it will never not be startling to see Judge make Pete Alonso [6], a fairly sizable human being, look like a polar-bear cub.) Five walks in five innings doesn’t look ideal in the box score, but it was an essential component of Quintana’s plan, one he executed to near-perfection.
The Mets cuffed Luis Gil [7] around when the two teams met in June [8], but Gil has been a lot better since then, largely because Luis Severino [9] took him aside for slider instruction. Severino, you may recall, wears our uniform; Ron Darling [10] sounded both amused and exasperated when he suggested that lesson would have been better delivered in the offseason.
The Mets tied the game at 1-1 when Gil tired in the fifth, hitting Francisco Lindor [11] with the bases loaded, then went on top when Jeff McNeil [12] homered off Michael Tonkin [13], who’d pitched pretty well as a Yankee after his double DFA with the Mets. McNeil’s eight-pitch AB against Tonkin was a clinic, with four foul balls, one of them the merest whisper of contact to keep McNeil alive and waiting for Tonkin to make a mistake, which he finally did.
That AB was a classic; in a lot of others, though, the Mets looked like the same aggravating bunch we saw in Miami, failing again and again to land a knockout blow. The fifth inning yielded just one run in part because McNeil misread a Tyrone Taylor [14] drive off the fence that should have scored him and sent Luis Torrens [15] to third; later in the inning, Brandon Nimmo [16] just missed a grand slam and then looked out of sorts in striking out. The eighth saw Torrens and Taylor strike out with runners on second and third, though it’s only fair to note that Luke Weaver [17]‘s change-up was nigh unhittable; the ninth saw Lindor strike out after a DJ LeMahieu [18] error put Harrison Bader [19] on second with nobody out, after which Bader tried to break early for third and was out by approximately the length of a 4 train.
Meanwhile, the Mets’ relievers mostly held the fort with both Jose Butto [20] and Edwin Diaz [21] unavailable. (And let’s note here that aircraft problems in Miami meant the players didn’t get to bed until 6:30 am or so if they were lucky [22].) Adam Ottavino [23] allowed a sixth-inning run to let the Yankees creep within a run at 3-2 but was bailed out by newcomer Alex Young [24], whose arrival unfortunately came about because Christian Scott [25] has a sprained UCL and is on the 15-day IL, with the 380-day IL an all too possible outcome. Dedniel Nunez [26] started the seventh with an error and a wild pitch, but struck out Soto (yes, it can be done), walked Judge intentionally and then got Ben Rice [27] to fly out deeply but harmlessly to end a wonderful/terrifying eight-pitch battle between talented rookies, followed by a groundout from Anthony Volpe [28]. Phil Maton [29] worked a scoreless eighth, but a walk scrambled Carlos Mendoza [30]‘s likely plan to have Maton start the ninth and hand things over to Diekman.
Nope, it was Diekman all the way. He got Trent Grisham [31] to fly deep to center, then walked Soto on four pitches. Up came Judge with the game in the balance and Yankee Stadium in full cry. Judge! Who has 35 homers and 89 RBI and it’s not yet August! Diekman surprised him with a fastball down the middle, followed that with a changeup off the plate, then doubled up on the change, which got a lot of plate but Judge fouled off. Diekman went back to the fastball, putting one inside on Judge’s hands. Then he doubled up on that, throwing probably his best pitch as a Met: 96 on the inside edge to lock up Judge for strike three.
That left Rice as the Yankees’ last hope, and I had visions of a terrible anticlimax, in which Diekman lost the strike zone or left a sweeper where Rice could give it a ride. Diekman got two strikes to start, which only made me more nervous about how much a reversal could hurt; two balls didn’t exactly help me find my center. You could see Diekman looking for the key to the lock and the pitch that would finish off Rice; the kid fouled off the fastball, then the sweeper, and then finally smacked a fastball to McNeil, and just like that the Mets had won [32].
They’d won by sending Diekman up against two of the mightiest hitters on the planet. Just like I’m sure they drew it up.