While the Yankees have always been known as a ball club that isn’t afraid to pay their players, Steve Cohen’s acquisition of the New York Mets a few years ago has brought them into a similar position when it comes to spending power. Both lineups feature a bunch of all-star fielders and batters that would be franchise players on most other teams. However, with Pete Alonso and Aaron Judge in the dugout, both teams are going into this Subway series with a little less star power than usual. The Met’s still had their ace, Max Scherzer, on the mound last night who put on an all-time bad performance allowing 2 home runs and only getting 2 strikeouts through 3 innings.
Louis Severino didn’t do much better for the Yankees as he let up 6 runs with 4 strikeouts through 4 innings. With both teams expecting to get much more out of their starters this game turned into a battle of the relievers. Nimmo really put the Mets on his back with a leadoff homer that would give the Mets an early lead. The Yankee’s rookie shortstop, Anthony Volpe, would have a crucial double against Scherzer to spark a 4-run comeback that gave them a 6-5 lead in the 4th inning. This didn’t last long as Luis Guillorme would have a crucial RBI single to tie the game up in the 5th. Much like the rest of this game an uneventful pop fly in the 6th inning would give the Yankees a 7-6 lead and decide the game. A major headline following this game was about the Mets relief pitcher Drew Smith getting ejected in the 7th inning before even throwing a pitch. After being cleared by multiple umpires, Smith took the field and was then ejected for having a sticky substance on his hand. Once he left the field another ump checked him and said he had nothing on his hands.
Multiple Mets players have commented that they felt his hands and they were not sticky. Specifically, Max Scherzer questioned how a pitcher gets ejected before even throwing a pitch. This is a problem that the Mets have faced all year long with Scherzer 10 game suspension earlier in the season. Hopefully, the ball club can put it behind them and get back on track in tonight’s game.
As someone who has been to a few Subway series games, it was sad to see how muted the crowd was for a sold-out game. There weren’t any fights or slanderous things said from behind the camera. These are things you would typically expect from rival New York teams. Keith Hernandez, an SNY announcer, even commented that in all his years of covering the series he had never seen a crowd so quiet. This is a perfect example of sports fan gentrification. Subway series tickets get more and more expensive every season. This year, upper deck seats are starting around $250. Whether you want to credit that to inflation or the ticket-buying system is up to you, but it has become pretty evident that the real fans are watching at home. The type of person who is going to rile up a crowd isn’t spending that kind of money for tickets. Gone are the days when fans would get hammered in the parking lot and then proceed to yell heinous shit at the players for 9 innings straight. Hopefully, New York can get a little more rowdy tonight as Gerrit Cole faces off against Justin Verlander in Queens.
