The Mets were doing their best to be considerate guests at Yankee Stadium on Tuesday night. They left half of Rego Park on base through the ninth inning. They made some strange choices on the base paths, but that’s really the kindest word to describe their misfortune. They weren’t auditioning for Gold Glove voters on the other side of the ball.
Maybe I brought a case of beer and some snacks. The Mets are really good neighbors.
And now the Yankee Stadium bullpen gates swung open, and the perfect hostess gift emerged: It wasn’t Edwin Diaz, who threw 28 pitches on Monday and pitched three times in four days, who took the mound for the ninth inning. It was Jake Diekman. There were 47,453 fans in Yankee Stadium, and as the SNY and YES cameras scanned the crowd, it seemed like every person in a Mets uniform was covering their eyes at the same time. And every person in pinstripes was smiling broadly.
Diekman has struggled this year. In his warm-up innings, he had a 5.28 ERA, a 1.448 WHIP, 23 walks and 34 strikeouts. Those are kerosene numbers for a relief pitcher. And now he has to face the No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 hitters in the Yankees’ lineup. The No. 2 and No. 3 hitters are Juan Soto and Aaron Judge, who entered this game with a combined OPS of 2.140.
Diekmann found himself in a tough spot.
And the Mets were with him.
“He’s done this before,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza later argued, “and he’s been in the league a long time and he’s struggled before, but he found a solution and got out of it before.”
The Mets were leading 3-2, most of the news coming from the distant scoreboard was bad, and they were on the cusp of a great win and a terrible loss.
Trent Grisham smashed a pitch with two outs, but it flew deep into the park. Harrison Bader caught it 400 feet away. Yankees fans gasped. Mets fans winced. One out.
“You try to get it down to 0-1, get the pitchers in a good count, then hit a home run to get there,” Diekman said afterward.
But Soto didn’t chase. Diekman threw four pitches, some of which a less-than-powerful hitter could have hit in key moments. Soto spat on them all and walked to first base with the runner still tied.
Then Aaron Judge scored the winning run, Yankees fans rose to their feet and cheered, Mets fans tried to duck under their seats.
“I was just going to leave it there,” Mendoza said.
The Mets have already walked Judge four times, including one intentionally in the seventh inning — a strategy most teams would want to consider, especially with the Yankees’ batting order currently resembling an open-mic-night tryout — and it would be hard to argue if Mendoza had chosen to wag four fingers here, pushing the tying runner to second and putting the winning runner on base.
Diekman threw his first pitch at 96 mph, middle-middle of the plate, and Judge looked as surprised as anyone in the stadium to see it thrown a strike.
Diekman: “I have to try to get them to get outs. I didn’t do that well against Soto. Now I have to pitch my own way.”
He was up 1-2 when Judge fouled him off and drove him inside for the second pitch.
“When you get the heater working, it feels pretty good,” Diekman said. “I didn’t want to let it go to waste.”
Not possible, with a short porch behind him. So Diekman threw a heater in. Enough plate. The judges froze. Strike three. Mets fans exhaled. Yankees fans sighed. Two outs.
“It’s a big deal for him,” Mendoza said.
Ben Rice. The strength Rice has shown thus far is his ability to react to fastballs. But Diekman was pitching with confidence now. He was down 0-2 with two four-seam fastballs. Rice was back in the count at 2-2. Diekman stepped on the gas again, this time at 95. Rice hit a grounder to second base off Jeff McNeil, the hitting star of the day.
Mets fans rejoiced.
Yankees fans sprinted toward Deegan.
“There’s a reason he’s been in this league so long,” Mendoza said.
“When they ask, you do the best you can,” Diekman said, “and then do it again the next day.”
The Mets were trying to be generous. They really were. Until Diekman came along, glared at the Yankees, and declared, “No soup for you.”
