Subway Series: Mets club five home runs, score 12 runs to complete season sweep of Yankees

The Mets went big on Wednesday night: big stage, big hits and a very big win.

In the finale of the 2024 Subway Series, the Mets tagged Yankees ace Gerrit Cole for three home runs and hit five in all as they scored an 12-3 victory before a sellout crowd of 48,760 at the Stadium to complete a four-game sweep of the season series and hit their high-water mark for the season.

Francisco Lindor hit two home runs in a 3-for-5 performance — a two-run shot in the fifth inning off Cole and a three-run blast off Caleb Ferguson in the eighth — for his third multi-homer game of the season.

This is only the second time since the Subway Series became an annual part of the regular season in 1997 that the Mets have blanked their crosstown rivals and the first time since 2014. They won all four meetings, two in each team’s home park both times.

“We played well,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said. “It’s not an easy ballpark to come in and take two from a good team. But it says a lot about this group. They’re ready to go. It was a good win yesterday and then today, against good pitcher [like] Cole, we were able to do some damage.”

The Mets (53-48) are now five games over .500 for the first time this season and moved ahead of the Cardinals into sole possession of the second NL wild card slot in a very crowded field.

“It’s great winning, I love winning, obviously it feels much better,” Lindor said of the Mets rise from being 11 games under .500 on June 2. “The vibes are completely different than when we were losing. Right now, we understand that we have a good team and great players . . . So it's a good moment. It's a good wave.”

The Yankees meanwhile have lost 22 of their last 32 games and the losing is starting to fray nerves.

“We got to play better, OK?” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “We have it right in front of us. We’re a really good team that has played [expletive] of late. We need to be better. I’m not going to define ‘stretch this or that.’ We’ve got to go win . . . . and we’re right there. We’re watching other teams struggle around us. We know we got to be better.”

Tyrone Taylor (three hits and a stellar diving catch in centerfield) and Pete Alonso hit the other home runs off Cole and Mark Vientos added one off Tim Hill.

Cole was making his seventh start since returning from the injured list and had appeared to be in mid-season form with his two best outings in his previous two appearances. But the righthander gave up six runs in 5 2/3 innings. After a Taylor run-scoring single in the sixth, Cole flipped his glove in the air to himself out of frustration.

The Mets have had the ace’s number this season. They hit four home runs and scored six off Cole in four innings of their 9-7 win at Citi Field on June 25.

“We were aggressive,” Mendoza said. “Even when we got behind in counts we were still looking for pitches we could do some damage with. I thought [Cole] was ‘on’ today but he just left a couple cutters [over], one to Alonso and one to Lindor. We stayed ready . . . for some mistakes.”

“Cole is a great pitcher,” Lindor said. “He executes most of the time and at times, when he doesn’t, we’ve made him pay. But he’s one of the best pitchers in the game . . . it’s just baseball.”

Mets starter Sean Manaea allowed nine runners in 4 2/3 inning before he was lifted in the fifth with the bases loaded and two out. Adam Ottavino got an inning-ending force out and Danny Young, Alex Young and Adrian Houser got the final 12 outs while allowing one run.

The struggling Yankees offense managed only six hits.

“We’re [expletive] off in there,” Boone said. “We’ve got a lot of pride in there. We’ve got a lot of expectation in there. . . . For as bad as it’s been, we’re also in a great position and we got to go play baseball the way we’re capable of playing. And it’s on all of us, starting with me, in that room to make sure we’re coming out with the right level of energy and getting after it.”

The Taylor home run tied the score at 1 in the top of the third before Juan Soto’s solo shot, his 26th, gave the Yankees back a one-run lead in the bottom of the frame. Alonso hit his 20th home run of the season in top of the fourth off a Cole cutter, a two-run shot that provided the last lead change and gave the Mets first baseman four straight seasons with 20 or more home runs.

Lindor hit his first home run in the fifth inning, also off a Cole cutter, to make the score 5-2 and a Taylor run-scoring single got it to 6-2 before Cole’s glove flip proved the end of his outing.

The Mets turned it into a laugher in the eighth inning, when they sent 11 men to the plate and scored six runs, highlighted by Lindor’s second long ball.

The Mets are a 1½ games behind second-place Atlanta and begin a four-game series against it Thursday at Citi Field. But they aren’t getting ahead of themselves.

“We’re not looking at standings,” Mendoza said. “We just have to keep playing well.”

By Roger Rubin

roger.rubin@newsday.com@rogrubin

Roger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 to write about high schools, colleges and baseball following 20 years at the Daily News. A Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2011, he has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours.