BALTIMORE – All New York baseball fans who love Mets-Yankees better pay attention this weekend when the Subway Series pulls into The Bronx. Because unlike last year, there won’t be a third act in October thanks to the Mets’ putrid season.
Starting tonight at Yankee Stadium, the inter-borough baseball battle resumes. And despite the Yankees’ recent hot streak and the Mets being a flick of the wrist away from being flushed into oblivion, the three games figure to provide wonderful theatre because, ever since interleague play was introduced in 1997, Mets-Yankees has quickened the pulse of tri-state baseball fans. And that’s not mentioning last year’s five-game World Series.
Is it the packed houses that witness these games? Or does the media hype that surrounds any Subway Series – in June, July or October – bring out the best in the players, many of whom admit they could live very easily without the circus?
“Any time you play a rival, you play better games,” said Paul O’Neill, a veteran of every Mets-Yankees game since 1997. “When the pitchers bear down, you aren’t going to score many runs. You look at our playoff and World Series games through the years and they are always close. When we play the Mets and it gets blown up the way it does, everybody is pretty much focused.”
When we last left the Mets and Yankees, the Mets were celebrating a come-from-behind 8-7 victory at Shea Stadium in which they scored six runs (two earned) in the eighth inning. The Yankees already were making plans to restructure their bullpen before Brian Boehringer, Randy Choate and Carlos Almanzar melted down. After that loss, they moved forward quickly. In fact, they had a deal in place for Ugueth Urbina that Sunday night but it fell apart when Montreal got cold feet. Since then, Almanzar has been sent to Columbus (Triple-A), Boehringer was dealt to San Francisco, and Jay Witasick and Mark Wohlers were brought in.
After that victory, the Mets surged a bit, but going into last night’s action they were 37-48 and trailed the first-place Phillies in the NL East by a dozen games. Since throwing that game away, the Yankees had won 11 of 14, were one-half game ahead of the second-place Red Sox in the AL East and riding a season-high seven-game winning streak when they faced the Orioles last night.
Never a fan of playing the Mets in the middle of the summer, Joe Torre believes the atmosphere is the reason for the closeness of the games. This year the Yankees won, 5-4 and 2-1, before the Mets copped that 8-7 win. Last year’s World Series had the Yankees winning, 4-3 in 12 innings, 6-5, 3-2 and 4-2. The Mets’ victory in Game 3 was 4-2.
“I think the adrenaline rushes and both teams get up for the game and the fans do that for us,” Torre said. “You can throw records out the window. Plus, I am not sure, last year we won four out of five [World Series] games and for sure we were not 4 to 1 better than they were. I am not sure going in they weren’t the hotter team. But when you get in those games and you realize a ball called here or a strike called there or baserunning, whatever it is, can change the whole flow of things. It sort of helps when you pay attention.”
Mets outfielder Benny Agbayani is one of the few players who admits the electric atmosphere is something to enjoy instead of dread.
“It’s really fun, the fans get into it and it gets all hyped out,” Agbayani said.
Of course, it’s not the World Series. And no matter what the Mets do this weekend, their season is shot. But if history is to believed, the weekend will produce close games that will be decided late.
Why?
“I know that it usually comes down to the last couple of innings and I wish I knew why but I have no idea,” Derek Jeter said.
A TALE OF ONE CITY – & TWO TEAMS
A year ago this weekend, Roger Clemens sent Mike Piazza sprawling to the Yankee Stadium dirt when he unleased a 90-plus mph fastball at the Met catcher’s head. A look at some of the key numbers for the teams since the beaning.
