In the clubhouse after a gut-check win that featured a depleted pitching staff, the Mets weren’t trying to play it cool. They were jazzed, if you will, about beating the Yankees 6-5 with a late comeback in front of a raucous Citi Field crowd, convinced it said a lot about who they are as they pull themselves out of their June swoon.
And no one said it better than Reed Garrett, who came to the rescue with a six-out save on a day when Edwin Diaz and Ryne Stanek were unavailable, and reacted to the last out as if it were October.
“This is a huge series,” Garrett said. “To get those outs was big for me but it was also a great team win. I think it shows that if you back us into a corner, we’re going to fight our way out of it.”
Garrett wasn’t just speaking of Friday’s win, of course, but also the 3-14 stretch that had them reeling going into July. Suddenly they’ve won three straight games, however, and while they’re still very short on starting pitching, with no obvious starter for Sunday’s game, they’re feeling a lot better about themselves.
Beating the Yankees, even at a time when the team across town is in the midst of a five-game losing streak with worrisome bullpen problems, always seems to have that effect on the Mets.
“This was a huge game,” was the way Jeff McNeil put it, after delivering the go-ahead two-run home run in the seventh inning off Luke Weaver. “It’s always a battle with them. It’s emotional. It’s a playoff atmosphere.”
The Subway Series games do always have that feel, with the crowd providing added energy and intensity, but this one seemed to have a little extra edge, maybe because of the Juan Soto factor.
He was playing in his first Subway Series games as a Met at Citi Field, and not only put on a show with three hits but changed the complexion of the game in his very first at-bat.
By then the Yankees had already stunned the Mets with home runs from the first two batters of the game, Jasson Dominguez and Aaron Judge, and with journeyman right-hander Justin Hagenman on the mound, there was plenty of reason to believe the game could turn into a rout.
But then up came Soto in the first inning, with Brandon Nimmo on third. The crowd, which sounded like 70-75 percent Mets fans, seemed to rise as one to give Soto a huge ovation, as if to remind Yankee fans that he’s their guy now and they love him.
When Soto promptly delivered on that ovation with a home run to left-center off Marcus Stroman, the crowd went bananas.
“Juan responded right away with a setting-the-tone moment,’’ manager Carlos Mendoza said. “It was like, they punch us, we’re going to punch back.”
From there it was on. Cody Bellinger went deep to make it 3-2. Soto doubled and Alonso singled to tie it again at 3-3. Dominguez hit another long ball to make it 5-3 Yankees, then Brett Baty hit a bomb, and Citi Field was electric.
Mendoza was asked if he could appreciate the entertainment level even while living and dying with each pitch in the dugout.
“One hundred percent,” he said. “You appreciate the show. “You’re aware something special is happening, with the back and forth, the big crowd. It’s what you expect out of games like this.”
Of course, for a long time that looked like it might be small consolation, with the Mets trailing and short on arms. Mendoza went to Austin Warren to relieve Hagenman in the fifth and he promptly gave up the two-run shot to Dominguez.
In the seventh he turned to Huascar Brazoban, a disaster lately mostly because he couldn’t throw strikes. Yet on this day Brazoban found the form -- and the strike zone -- that made him such a weapon early in the season, and struck out both Judge and Bellinger to put up a scoreless seventh.
Still down 5-4, the Mets rallied, as Alonso worked a two-out walk off Weaver, and McNeil yanked a 3-2 change-up at the knees into the second deck in right field, saying afterward he had a feeling he might get the off-speed pitch in that spot.
“It’s his best pitch,” McNeil said.
Without Stanek or Diaz available, Mendoza then gave the ball to Garrett, who has been struggling as well lately. But like Brazoban, he found his form and worked a 14-pitch scoreless eighth, leading Mendoza to pull Garrett aside and say, “give me everything you’ve got” as he sent him back out for the ninth.
“The initial plan wasn’t for Garrett to go two innings,” Mendoza said in the interview room.
“What was the initial plan?” a reporter asked.
Mendoza smiled sheepishly, ducked his head, and said, “I’m just glad it worked out the way it did.”
He didn’t want to diss anyone but his best option at that point, and the only reliever warming up, was left-hander Richard Lovelady, a recent waiver-wire pick-up who would have been a bad matchup against the Yankees.
Instead, Garrett delivered another clean inning. It was a tense ninth, all the more so because Judge loomed as the fourth batter up. That made McNeil’s one-out diving play on DJ Lemahieu’s one-hopper in the hole feel almost like something of a game-saver.
“If that ball gets through it’s a completely different inning,” Mendoza said.
“I knew Judge would get up if anybody got on,” said McNeil. “So I knew it was a big play.”
Sure enough, Garrett then got Dominguez on a routine ground ball to McNeil and the game ended with Judge in the on-deck circle.
Gut-check win, indeed. It might be too early to say the Mets have officially turned the corner after their three-week nightmare, but on Friday it clearly felt that way to them.
