What Subway Sequence tells us about present state of Yankees and Mets

Yep. This figures. This is smart. The Yankees and the Mets performed two video games this week, and so they cut up these two video games. They performed 4 video games this season, and gained two apiece. That’s New York baseball summed up completely and correctly within the last days of July. Win one, lose one. Win just a few, lose just a few.

Quicksand all over the place.

We hold ready for somebody to make an enormous, daring assertion, one thing that, loosely translated, would learn this manner: “No, actually, we’re so a lot better than you suppose. We’re so a lot better than we glance. We’re so a lot better than we’ve performed.”

As a substitute day after day, week after week, month after month, the soundtrack for the baseball season stays one lengthy, prolonged yawn. In the event you picked up the newspaper Thursday morning and began doing the crossword puzzle and noticed a three-letter phrase with a clue of “the 2023 baseball season in New York Metropolis,” the reply could be simple.

“MEH.”

The Yankees salvaged a win Wednesday night time at Yankee Stadium due to a splendid begin from Carlos Rodon, due to excellent 10-up, 10-down work from their bullpen, due to the Mets making a few dangerous performs and struggling a few mind cramps. It’s a good prelim for a difficult upcoming 10 days, however they actually may have used a sweep.

The Mets? Let’s all make a pact with one another no matter how the surreal arithmetic of the Nationwide League work proper now: let’s droop speaking concerning the wild-card race till a) we see what sort of staff the Mets have beginning subsequent Wednesday and b) they discover a strategy to make a critical run at .500. Can we agree on that?

“We hit plenty of balls laborious tonight and so they discovered gloves,” Mets supervisor Buck Showalter mentioned. “We hit some balls delicate [Tuesday] and so they fell in. That’s the sport.”

“Oh, man, we’re in ‘let’s go, child,’ ” Yankees supervisor Aaron Boone mentioned. “We perceive the place we’re at, all the way down to the final couple of months and we perceive how essential these video games and collection are.”

The Yankees are expected to get Aaron Judge back this weekend, and that may’t come a second too quickly as a result of Friday begins a 10-games-in-10-days stretch that ought to inform us, as soon as and for all, who they’re and what they are often. They get three in opposition to the Orioles in Baltimore then come proper again house for 3 in opposition to the Rays and 4 in opposition to the Astros.

Boone has talked all season about how all the things the Yankees wish to accomplish is sitting there for them. That is precisely the type of stretch he’s been speaking about. These subsequent 10 are their equal of Saturday afternoon at Augusta, Transferring Day on the Masters. The Yankees have taken 4 full months to ease into the season. It’s time to grab it.

It could’ve been useful to financial institution a five-game successful streak heading in, however the Mets received in the way in which of that by battering Domingo German and clobbering the Yankees 9-3. Wednesday? Wednesday was paying homage to a well-known and fateful line Leo Durocher as soon as uttered in the summertime of ’69, after his Cubbies beat the Amazin’s and he was requested if that was the true Cubs.

“No,” the Lip mentioned. “That was the true Mets.”

It felt like Thursday was extra concerning the Mets revealing themselves than the Yankees revealing themselves. That point is now for the Yankees.

The Mets? They do have a tempting stretch of seven video games in opposition to the Nationals and Royals upcoming but when there’s a theme to this season via 101 video games it’s this: they’re by no means extra harmful than once they tease and taunt you with a few optimistic indicators. One thing is at all times lurking behind a nook.

Perhaps they show us improper. Perhaps in two weeks we’ll lookup and the Yankees can have rallied round Decide, flipped the narrative, flipped the standings, and eventually injected just a little little bit of life into a dull baseball season. It’s price rooting for, if it isn’t essentially price relying on.