It was another electric atmosphere at Yankee Stadium. A day after the Yankees faithful rained boos and expletives at Juan Soto, the crowd was treated to a hard-fought, nail-biter on Saturday.
Despite allowing two home runs, the Mets scraped together enough offense to beat the Yankees, 3-2, and even the Subway Series. There were mesmerizing defensive plays and clutch hits, but the cherry on top was the matchup between Edwin Diaz and Aaron Judge with two outs in the ninth and the game on the line.
Diaz would come out the victor, striking out Judge on a 3-2 heater up in the zone to preserve the one-run victory.
"Big league game, big league matchup. Every pitch was intense, every play," Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said after the win. "One-run game and then you get the matchup of Diaz-Judgey. That’s what you pay for."
While Diaz's personal victory over Judge capped the win, it was the little things that helped the Mets take the middle game of this weekend's series. Saturday's starter Griffin Canning continued his stellar pitching, allowing two runs (both solo shots) in 5.1 innings.
"It was awesome. Fun to compete in," Canning said of the atmosphere. "Awesome, awesome energy in the stadium and a fun lineup to compete against."
Canning was followed by 3.2 scoreless innings from the Mets' bullpen trio of Huascar Brazoban, Reed Garrett and Diaz. That allowed the Mets offense, which finished the game 1-for-7 with runners in scoring position and left eight men on base, to scratch across the go-ahead run in the ninth.
That run was driven in by de facto captain Francisco Lindor. Against tough Yankees reliever Fernando Cruz, Luis Torrens drew a one-out walk and was lifted for pinch-runner Luisangel Acuña. Bertt Baty's infield single and Tyrone Taylor's hit-by-pitch gave Lindor an opportunity to give the Mets the lead. After getting ahead 3-0 in the count, Lindor didn't try to do too much, and lifted a sacrifice fly to allow the speedy Acuña to score.
"No one is trying to be the hero," Lindor said of the team's offensive mindset. "Just play the game."
Lindor said his approach in that ninth-inning at-bat was to get a good pitch to hit and not put too much pressure on himself. As the shortstop said, "If I don’t get a good pitch to hit, then it’s Soto’s turn."
Once he got to 3-1, Lindor wanted something to get in the air, and that's what he did.