The Yankees are striking out with winning-obsessed Big Apple baseball fans, who now prefer the Mets to the Bronx bombers, according to an Amazin’ new poll released Friday.
Some 45 percent of fans back the Mets compared to 43 percent for the Yankees, the Quinnipiac University poll shows.
And depending on how the squads fare this season, the Mets margin could swell even more, pollsters said.
“In the Big Apple it looks like the 2017 baseball season will be a close race between the Yankees and the Mets,” said Maurice Carroll, Quinnipiac’s assistant polling director.
“It’s about time,” said lifelong Mets lover Denise Ledesma, 32, who lives in Yankees territory in The Bronx. “We’ve always been the ugly stepchild in New York. Hopefully it will quiet the Yankees fans.”
She wasn’t the only Mets fan celebrating.
“The Mets took over the city — I do believe that!” said Dorothy Tocker, 49, echoing the Amazin’s 1973 rallying cry, “Ya gotta believe!”
But the only metrics that matter are the record books, Yankee diehards said. “They’ve been to more World Series, they have more Hall of Famers — the statistics speak for themselves,” said Fahad Khan, 21, of Brooklyn.
Fans do agree the shift reflects how the teams have performed lately.
“The Mets are a better baseball team over the last years,” said third-generation Yankee fan Jared Fluegel, 28. “The Yankees need to start hurrying up and making moves to be a major team again.”
It’s a stunning turnaround for the Mets, who just three years ago trailed the Yankees badly in the same poll, 61 percent to 27 percent,.
But the findings don’t come out of left field.
The team from Queens has enjoyed the more recent success — making it to the World Series in 2015 and the Wild Card game last season. The Yankees last tasted the postseason in 2015, when they lost to the Houston Astros in a Wild Card game.
Even so, the Yankees remain the most popular team in New York State 48 to 34 percent, thanks to strong support upstate and in the suburbs, pollsters found.
Upstate fans favor the Yankees 53 to 14 percent for the Mets, with 9 percent for the Boston Red Sox.
Among suburbanites, 49 percent cheer for the Bombers and 44 percent for the Amazins.
“When they’re not following the Buffalo Bisons, the Syracuse Chiefs or the Tri-City ValleyCats, upstate baseball fans cheer for the New York Yankees,” Carroll said.
The Yankees open their season Sunday in Tampa against the Rays.
The Mets opening game is Monday at home against the Atlanta Braves.
The statewide poll of 1,605 adults was taken from March 23-27, and has a margin of error of 2.5 points.
Additional reporting by Max Jaeger and Abigail Gepner