Carlos Mendoza, Mets walk away with win over Yankees after striking out Aaron Judge in ninth
Yankees centerfielder Aaron Judge returns to the dugout after striking out looking against the Mets during the ninth inning of an MLB game at Yankee Stadium on Tuesday. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
What started out as a joke by Luis Severino about his former team wound up being a very effective scouting report.
Although the Yankees are showing lately they can be beaten in any number of ways, the guy that called the Bronx home just last season — the Mets’ first-year manager Carlos Mendoza — chose to follow Severino’s “two good hitter” guideline in Tuesday night’s Subway Series opener.
By mostly avoiding Judge until the ninth inning, throwing him only two strikes during his first four walks, the Mets rode Jeff McNeil’s two-run homer for a 3-2 victory over the Yankees, their third straight in three games.
This was as close to the Bonds treatment as Judge has faced this season. After getting pitched around in his first three plate appearances, Judge came up with Trent Grisham at second, first base open and one out in the seventh inning. Mendoza had a long mound meeting with Dedniel Nunez before plate umpire John Bacon flashed four fingers.
The Yankees replaced the struggling J.D. Davis with pinch hitter Ben Rice, who then flied out to the warning track. Anthony Volpe bounced to third to end the threat. The intentional walk to the Judge in the seventh marked the 12th time he had reached base in 13 plate appearances against the Mets this season, in three games, but scored only two runs — on both of his own homers.
“Some teams take that approach,” manager Aaron Boone said afterward. “Look, we’ll get that middle of the order more settled here hopefully in the coming days too and that changes the equation a little bit. But yeah, there’s going to be times where teams take that approach.”
Not some. All of them should. It’s a no-brainer at the moment. Then again, we probably won’t be seeing J.D. Davis in the cleanup spot anymore. Or Jahmai Jones hitting leadoff, as he did Tuesday night. Another makeshift Yankees lineup went 1-for-9 with runners in scoring position and stranded 11 runners on base in suffering their 21st loss in 31 games.
Avoiding Judge was a huge part of that for the Mets. At least early on.
“You saw it,” Mendoza said. “There’s going to be situations where we go after him. There’s going to be situations where the game will dictate how we attack him.”
The game told Mendoza something different in the ninth, however, when the manager had to go with Jake Diekman because closer Edwin Diaz — worn out from the previous night — was unavailable. After a one-out walk to Juan Soto — the other “good hitter” according to Severino — Diekman was given the green light to go right at Judge. On this rare occasion, against perhaps the sport’s most lethal hitter, it worked out.
Diekman got the count to 2-and-2, then perfectly spotted a 96-mph fastball on the inside black, freezing Judge for the strikeout. From there, he retired Rice on a routine bouncer to second base, and Mendoza’s strategy — along with faith in his players — delivered big dividends.
“To have the conviction to go to the danger zone there — well, I think you can say anywhere in the strike zone is a danger zone with Judge — but for him to just stay on the attack and be aggressive when he needed to be,” Mendoza said. “He’s been in this league for a long time for a reason. And he showed it today.”
The sleep-deprived Mets, whose plane issues didn’t get them back from Miami until sunrise early Tuesday morning, were supposed to be the groggy team heading into the Subway Series opener.
And yet it was the Yankees, fully-rested after Monday’s Bronx matinee rout of the Rays, who posted a lineup card that Boone apparently plucked from some reality-warping fever dream. Except for those “two good hitters” in their usual spots.
“They know it was just a little inside joke,” Severino said before Tuesday night’s game.
Still, the Yankees haven’t been in the best of moods lately. Tuesday’s righty-heavy lineup was a dice roll, just the latest permutation in an effort to scrape up some production around the Soto-Judge steamroller. That’s where Boone is at, until Giancarlo Stanton (hamstring) is ready early next month and maybe Jasson Dominguez (obligue) gets himself up to speed. With Dominguez expected to start playing at Triple-A Scranton within the week, the young slugger could be a welcome addition later in August.
As desperate as the Yankees are for impact bats, however, they’re not in the same playoff pinch as the Mets, who aren’t out of the woods quite yet as far as convincing the front office to buy big in the week leading up to the deadline. The weekend split of a four-game series in Miami wasn’t a huge vote of confidence coming out of the All-Star break, and the Mets — currently holding onto the third wild card — are in the midst of another crucial stretch before July 30: the Subway Series, four against Atlanta at Citi, then the Twins come to Queens to finish the month.
“For us, as quickly as we got to that spot, it can easily go away,” Pete Alonso said.
But the Mets showed more reason to believe with Tuesday night’s victory, a smart and savvy win over their crosstown rival. Worth staying awake for.
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.
