After disaster struck for the Yankees in the ninth inning Wednesday night, they had two days to let the impact of that defeat marinate during a week that began with their manager saying the season was on the line.
Saturday, the Yankees’ calamity was spread out over nine innings — and the damage was inflicted by their crosstown rivals as the Mets took a bag of salt and scattered it all over Yankees’ open wounds.
Taijuan Walker no-hit the Yankees for 5 ¹/₃ innings and the Mets’ bats singled them to death for an 8-3 win in front of a season-high 40,047 at Yankee Stadium.
“All the credit to [Walker] for holding them at bay,” said Brandon Nimmo, who had a three-hit day in his return to the Mets after missing two months with a hand injury. “That’s a big, powerful offense, and he held them at bay so we could put some runs up for him.”
While the Mets (42-36) bounced back from their own tough series in Atlanta — which featured a 20-2 loss Wednesday and a walk-off loss Thursday — the Yankees (41-40) lost for the sixth time in seven games. Coming off back-to-back rainouts after Wednesday’s devastating loss to the Angels, they didn’t show much life Saturday and hit the halfway point of their season 10 games out of first place in the AL East.
“It’s frustrating,” manager Aaron Boone said. “We’re all pissed off about it. We’ve set a much higher bar in there and we haven’t, to this point, lived up to that. We’ve got to turn it around in a big-time way if we’re going to get to be the team we want to be.”
Walker continued his strong season by not giving up a hit until Aaron Judge took him deep for a solo home run with one out in the sixth inning. The Yankees added a pair of runs later in the inning, but Jeurys Familia and Drew Smith retired their final 10 batters in order to end the game.
Both teams entered with bottom-10 offenses in MLB, but it was the Mets who came alive, out-hitting the Yankees 14-3, with 13 of those hits singles. The top of the Mets’ lineup led the way. Nimmo, Francisco Lindor and Dominic Smith combined to go 8-for-13, with six runs scored and four RBIs.
After wasting scoring chances early off Jordan Montgomery, the Mets finally cashed in on a rally in the fifth. Nimmo, Lindor and Smith delivered consecutive singles with one out, the last one driving in Nimmo to put the Mets ahead 1-0.
Pete Alonso then drew a walk to load the bases, marking the end of Montgomery’s day after 4 ¹/₃ innings — his second-shortest outing of the season.
“We hate losing,” Montgomery said. “We know what we’re capable of. We just got to play better.”
Lucas Luetge relieved Montgomery and allowed a broken-bat single to James McCann that gave the Mets a 2-0 lead, before a wild pitch made it 3-0.
The Mets padded their lead in the sixth inning off former teammate Justin Wilson. Jeff McNeil, Jose Peraza and Nimmo each singled to load the bases before Lindor walked to force in a run. Smith then made it 6-0 with a two-run double, knocking Wilson out of the game.
Michael King came on and got two outs before allowing a two-run single to Kevin Pillar that put the Mets up 8-0.
After the Yankees had gotten within 8-3 in the bottom of the sixth, with Judge’s homer and Gio Urshela’s two-run single off Miguel Castro, Familia put out the fire by striking out Miguel Andujar to strand two runners on base.
“We got two really big games tomorrow and we gotta get after it,” Luke Voit said. “We’re not playing good at all. We’re playing pretty bad right now, me included. I’m playing awful. … We gotta figure out a way to scrape out two wins tomorrow.”