Pete Alonso delivers monster game as Mets rout Yankees in Subway Series opener
The Yankees spent the weekend beating up on the Royals in a get-right series.
The Mets came into town on Tuesday and turned the tables.
Justin Verlander cruised through six shutout innings and Pete Alonso crushed a pair of home runs to lead the Mets to a 9-3 win over the Yankees in front of 46,540 at Yankee Stadium.
With the second edition of this year’s Subway Series beginning one week ahead of MLB’s trade deadline — and neither team looking like a surefire buyer — the Mets (47-53) snapped a two-game losing streak while the Yankees (53-48) saw their winning streak cut short at three games.
The Yankees mustered just two hits against Verlander, who continued to look like his old self, now with a 1.46 ERA over his last six starts.
“He had his way with us,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “I definitely thought he was sharp and really beat us up tonight.”
Alonso continued to show signs of turning a corner himself, recording his first two home runs since July 6 while going 3-for-4 with a walk and five RBIs.
“There’s a lot of work, not just physically but mentally, that was put in in order to get to this point,” Alonso said. “I’m just really happy that I can finally see the fruits of my labor.”
Alonso was just part of the Mets’ onslaught against Domingo German, who was roughed up for a second straight start, giving up six runs across six innings.
The Yankees’ offense, coming off scoring 18 runs in a three-game sweep of the lowly Royals over the weekend, were unable to build on that momentum. The Mets’ bullpen tried to offer them a lifeline across the final three innings, but it proved too little, too late on a night when the Yankees went 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position and left 11 men on base.
The Mets jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the first inning, which Brandon Nimmo led off with a double off the right-field wall.
Two outs later with Nimmo on third, Alonso hit a well-placed bloop to left-center field that found grass among three chasing Yankees for a 1-0 Mets lead.
Alonso’s single had an expected batting average of .050, but counted all the same.
The Mets ran a similar left-field bloop play in the third inning and found even more success with it.
With two outs, Francisco Lindor skied a pop-up down the left-field line that Billy McKinney made a charge for but could not come up with, resulting in a double — despite having a .030 expected batting average.
After walking Jeff McNeil, German got ahead 0-2 on Alonso and tried to throw a changeup down and away.
Instead, it stayed on the inner third of the strike zone and Alonso did not miss, cruising a three-run home run to left field to make it 4-0.
In the sixth inning, Alonso and Daniel Vogelbach led off with back-to-back home runs off German that extended the lead to 6-0.
“We gotta keep Pete in check [Wednesday],” catcher Kyle Higashioka said.
With the Yankees down 7-0 in the bottom of the seventh inning, Anthony Volpe got them on the board with an RBI double off Brooks Raley.
They went on to load the bases with one out, but only got a Giancarlo Stanton sacrifice fly out of it.
The Yankees reloaded the bases with one out in the eighth inning against Grant Hartwig, at which point Buck Showalter brought in David Robertson.
The veteran put out the flames with the Yankees again only scratching across one run on a fielder’s choice by pinch-hitter Ben Rortvedt.
By the end of the game, the good feelings the Yankees’ offense had built up over the course of the weekend had been flushed out.
“I don’t think it’s disappointing,” said Harrison Bader, who had one of the Yankees’ five hits on the night. “It’s obviously part of the game. It’s important to learn from everything. Tonight we learned that’s obviously a good team over there that’s bringing it [Wednesday]. We’re just focused on that.”
