In the aftermath of the Yankees sell off at the trade deadline, a home and home Subway series begins at Citi Field. The Yankees hopefully bought many useful future parts over the past week as the push to get younger picks up full steam. The players that are left over will have to carry the torch for the rest of 2016. A nothing to lose attitude can bring a breath of fresh air to a team sometimes, so who knows where it will lead.
A late rally
The Yankees rolled into Citi Field with a revamped clubhouse and more moves possibly to come. C.C. Sabathia would get the nod on the mound on Monday night. He would pitch pretty well early on, his only mistake being a fastball that Wilmer Flores took him deep on in the second inning. The Yankees would tie things on a wild pitch in the fourth inning and then take a 3-1 lead in the fifth courtesy of RBI hits from Brett Gardner and Jacoby Ellsbury.
C.C. had a good fastball and slider combo going until the sixth, which turned out to be his undoing. Matt Reynolds would mash a fastball up in the zone for a three-run homer that at the time would give the Mets a 5-3 lead. Fastballs up in the zone will not be missed very many times. Hard to make a living that way. Sabathia would exit after 5.2 innings, giving up 8 hits and 5 runs, while walking 3 and striking out 5. His ERA that at one time was around 2.00, now sits solidly above the 4.00 mark.
To the Yankees credit, they didn’t roll over and give up. In the top of the eighth, Didi Gregorius blooped a 2-RBI single to left field to tie the game at five. It would stay that way until the 10th inning when Starlin Castro would hit a sacrifice fly to deep left that gave the Yankees a 6-5 lead.
The newest Yankee closer, Dellin Betances, would make things interesting in the bottom half of the inning. A leadoff double would start things, but with runners on first and third and one out, Betances would get a comebacker and a strikeout to end the game and hand the visitors a 6-5 win. This team will hopefully have a little fight in them and at least keep things interesting the rest of the way. With the influx of young talent that will be joining the roster in the coming weeks, it could be fun to watch.
And then a dud
Masahiro Tanaka would get the start in the second game of the series and he was definitely not true to form. His counterpart for the Mets, Jacob deGrom, was more than up to the task, both on the mound and with the bat. The offense had nothing to offer for the Yankees and the Mets would garner a split of the two games in their home park.
Tanaka would start out well enough as he retired the first eight batters. But a single to deGrom was followed by a two-run home run from Alejandro De Aza for a 2-0 lead. Travis d’Arnaud would hit a hanging slider into the seats in the fifth for a 3-0 lead and then things would fall completely apart in the seventh. A few well placed hits and some not so great Yankee defense would lead to four more runs that would all be charged to Tanaka. 7 earned runs is hardly par for the course for Tanaka, but I suppose everyone has one of those outings occasionally.
Didi would be the only thing between the Mets and a shutout as he sent a Jon Niese pitch into the right field seats in the ninth for the lone Yankees run. Now that Carlos Beltran is gone, I suppose he is the top hitter on the team and probably provides the most excitement on the field. Not much to get excited about here as the two game set was essentially a snapshot of the Yankees season thus far. It all boils down to average as they are sitting at .500 for the year, at 53-53. The two teams will head across town for a pair of games at Yankee Stadium the next two nights.
