Max Scherzer wasn’t his sharpest self Monday night, and didn’t fare quite as well against Aaron Judge as he did in July, as the Mets lost to the Yankees, 4-2, at Yankee Stadium in the opener of the second installment of the Subway Series.
The Mets, coming off a doubleheader Saturday and a long, emotional victory on Sunday, sagged offensively against Yankee starter Domingo Germán (2-2), who threw 6.1 innings and allowed two runs (one earned). The Mets had only four hits and had only one at-bat with a runner in scoring position.
The Mets, who beat the Yankees twice earlier in the year, are now 60-77 against the Yankees all-time during the regular season and 29-41 in the Bronx. With a victory Tuesday, the Mets can win the season series against the Yanks.
Here are the Mets takeaways:
-Scherzer (9-3) allowed four runs in a game for the second straight start, the first time that’s happened all year. In 6.2 innings, he also gave up seven hits while striking out three and walking one. He allowed a solo home run to Judge – more on that later – and threw 101 pitches, 73 strikes.
-Scherzer and Judge had an entertaining matchup in July, when Scherzer dominated the Yankee slugger with sliders, fanning him three times on the pitch and holding him to 0-for-4 overall. Monday night started much the same way, with Judge whiffing on a slider in the first inning. But Judge got a measure of payback in the third, slamming his 47th homer of the year on a fastball mistake. Scherzer wanted the pitch away, but it drifted toward the middle and got clobbered. In the fifth inning, Judge smacked a drive to the warning track in right. Based on Scherzer’s unhappy reaction, he must have thought it was gone, too, but the ball was caught.
-In the seventh, Judge knocked Scherzer out of the game with a two-out single, which followed an Andrew Benintendi RBI single that lifted the Yankees’ lead to 4-2. The Yanks’ run was set up by Isiah Kiner-Falefa’s infield single. On that same play, IKF reached second on a throwing error by Francisco Lindor. Judge’s single gave the Yankees two men on, but Trevor May relieved Scherzer and struck out Anthony Rizzo to end the inning.
-Scherzer’s first-inning strikeout of Judge was the 3,155th of his career, meaning he snapped a tie with Pedro Martínez for sole possession of 13th place all-time. His next target in 12th place is Ferguson Jenkins, who had 3,192 strikeouts.
-The Mets got a break in the seventh inning and took advantage. It helped them pull within, 3-2. With one out Pete Alonso lofted a short fly ball into right field. Oswaldo Cabrera, making his first MLB start at second base, drifted out and Marwin Gonzalez, playing in his 74th game ever in right field, came in. It was clearly Gonzalez’s ball, but the two fielders collided and the ball squirted out of Cabrera’s glove, putting Alonso on base. Luis Castillo flashbacks, anyone?
-The Yankees left Germán in the game to face Daniel Vogelbach and the slugger made the Yankees pay, smacking his 16th homer over the right-field wall and cutting the Yanks’ lead to 3-2. Vogelbach’s homer, his fourth with the Mets, traveled 404 feet and was hit 103 miles-per-hour.
-On a mostly-forgettable night for the Mets offense, James McCann had a memorable at-bat. He dueled Germán for 12 pitches in the sixth inning and reached on an infield single that was hit right back at the pitcher and struck Germán on the back of the right leg. But Germán got the next two outs to escape the inning.