The New York Yankees and New York Mets squared off Monday in the conclusion to the 2018 Subway Series. Monday was a makeup for a July rainout at Yankee Stadium that the Yankees had sandwiched in between sets against the Texas Rangers and Tampa Bay Rays.
The Yanks had Luis Severino on the hill, who is supposed to be the ace, trying to build off a solid appearance in Chicago last week.
Severino did not build off of that start, unfortunately. He gave up two runs in the first on an Ahmed Rosario leadoff home run followed by a Brandon Nimmo double and a Jeff McNeil single.
A Rosie way to lead off tonight's game, @Amed_Rosario. ? pic.twitter.com/304yhCERRg
— New York Mets (@Mets) August 13, 2018
The Yankees offense and, to a greater extent, the Mets defense bailed out Sevy in the bottom of the third. Austin Romine hit a leadoff single and Brett Gardner worked a walk to set Giancarlo Stanton up with two men on and no outs.
Stanton hit a medium-hard grounder to third, which looked to be a tailor-made double play, but the Mets are very inept so McNeil threw the ball away, allowing Romine to score and Stanton to go to second.
If de Grom is so good how come he doesn't even know? #yankees pic.twitter.com/vWFSZhNDvI
— David Mendelsohn (@BigBabyDavid_) August 14, 2018
Look at these stupid guys pic.twitter.com/RsD4l2rpoj
— David Mendelsohn (@BigBabyDavid_) August 14, 2018
That narrowed the deficit to 2-1, and the Yankees weren’t done yet.
The Bombers were able to tie it up on a single to shallow center from Aaron Hicks that plated Stanton.
Thank you, Hicks! #Yankees pic.twitter.com/J5csoQ3W3o
— David Mendelsohn (@BigBabyDavid_) August 14, 2018
It looked like they had been bailed out and now had a tie game after a horrid start from Severino, who was thought to, perhaps, be settling down while Mets starter Jacob de Grom, conversely, dealt from the start.
Sevy gave the lead back to the Mets about as quickly as he could have. After giving up a leadoff single to Austin Jackson, familiar foe Jose Bautista lifted a ball over the short porch to give the Mets another 2-run lead, 4-2.
? from @JoeyBats19.
4-2 #Mets | End-4 pic.twitter.com/dRYpjEWZiL
— New York Mets (@Mets) August 14, 2018
I hated that! Severino got through the rest of the fourth without much trouble, but that would be the end of his night. His final line: 4.0 IP, 7 H, 4 ER, 1 BB, 6 K on 98 pitches. It was a horrible performance, but if you’re looking for some positive from this start, six strikeouts in four innings is pretty good?
The Yankees need to figure Severino out. I don’t know what the problem is, but it has to happen.
Manager Aaron Boone then brought in Chad Green to toss the fifth inning. Chad looked about as good as he has in 3 weeks or so, at least, tossing a scoreless inning, helped by a caught stealing on a bad popup slide from Michael Conforto that was spotted upon replay review.
The Yankees got a run back in the fifth when Gardner doubled and Didi Gregorius singled him in.
If de Grom doesn't go over 6 IP (which is looking likely) I'll take a 1-run difference in a bullpen battle. Here's Didi's hit pic.twitter.com/JoJpNksrze
— David Mendelsohn (@BigBabyDavid_) August 14, 2018
With the deficit narrowed to just 4-3, this is the point in the game where I pin a good amount of the loss on Boone.
Chad Green threw just 14 pitches in the fifth inning. He’s supposed to be the multi-inning stopper out of the bullpen: why was he taken out? You have to send him out there to squeeze out a second inning when they only get four innings from Severino.
Instead, Boone handed the ball to AJ Cole, and Cole erased all of the progress that was made the previous inning when he gave up a solo shot to Todd Frazier to put the lead at 5-3.
As a consolation, Cole got the next three outs fairly easily, but was still sent out for a second inning for some reason.
Sure, AJ Cole allowed them to erase the progress again, but at least he then made the next three guys look kinda silly #yankees pic.twitter.com/9iz96ZDsyM
— David Mendelsohn (@BigBabyDavid_) August 14, 2018
After getting another strikeout to lead off the bottom of the second. Cole served up back-to-back homers to Nimmo and Conforto to put the game out of reach. After a walk to Wilmer Flores, Boone had finally seen enough and yanked Cole, putting in George Kontos, who was recently re-acquired in a trade with the Cleveland Indians.
The luster has officially worn off on AJ Cole. He has a 8.64 ERA in his last 8.1 IP, surrendering 14 hits, including 4 doubles and 4 homers, and 5 walks. I don’t want to see him in an important situation for a while.
Kontos actually did a nice job in 1.2 IP. He struck out two and only let on one base runner.
The Yankees made the game close again, technically, when Miguel Andujar hit a two-run homer, making the score just 7-5.
That was nice, but Zach Britton, of course, gave up another run in the ninth inning. He has been pretty bad since coming over from Baltimore, but he has time and a track record to show that he will figure it out.
The Yanks didn’t threaten in the ninth and the lost the game 8-5.
Featured Image via Flickr/Kevin Coles
