(Neil Miller/Sportsday Wire)
You might want to call this day Freaky Friday, because it was almost like the Mets switched bodies with the Yankees tonight.
The Mets are not supposed to win these types of Subway Series games.
They are not supposed to put away an opponent like the Yankees with smooth efficiency.
They are not the team to hit three home runs.
That’s the Yankees job. Bronx Bombers, remember?
But if I didn’t see it with 43,602 others – and they were mostly Mets fans – then I would have not believed it.
The Mets have become the Yankees and New York is theirs for the taking.
More importantly, with the Nationals keeping pace tonight, the Mets cut their magic number to eight.
Going into this game, you saw the pitching matchup tonight and it looked like it favored the Yankees. Masahiro Tanaka has been their best pitcher down the stretch and young Steven Matz was supposed to be due for a bad start. All rookies get them, and why not now?
No way.
Matz didn’t have his best stuff with his curveball abandoning him, but he stood in there, threw changups and sliders instead and gave the Mets six innings of one-run ball.
“I think he settled down after the first inning,” manager Terry Collins said. “From the third inning on, he got better. I was worried about the pitch count, but it was important for him to get his six innings.”
And for everything that was written about Yoenis Cespedes, it was the old Mets who came through. Lucas Duda came through with a game tying homer. Daniel Murphy tattooed the go-ahead run and David Wright Went 2-3.
It was almost if the years of bad baseball are bursting out and they can taste it.
More importantly, it’s good to see that everyone contributing. For as great as Cespedes has played, the Mets need their deep lineup to come through or No. 52 will get not much to hit in October.
“It’s part of the team effort,” Collins said. “It’s going to take more than one guy.”
Even the bullpen got into it. Without Tyler Clippard, who tweaked his back during batting practice, Hansel Robles took care of the seven and Addison Reed three aspirin tablets in the eight.
As professional as this win was, these are still the Yankees who loaded the bases in the ninth off Jeurys Familia, who was able to get out of it.
More importantly, this may be the start of a statement. With Noah Syndergaard and Matt Harvey taking the ball the next two games, the Mets have a chance to sweep. Even Joe Girardi declined comment on that.
“I’ll tell you after the next two games,” he said.
If that happens then it’s not just Freaky Friday, but maybe the full blown road to becoming a Mets town again.
Wouldn’t that be just something?
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