With the baseball world fixated on New York, the Bronx’s half of the Subway Series concluded with an 8-2 victory for the home team on Sunday Night Baseball.
The Bombers secured a series win in the eighth inning, as a leadoff walk from Jasson Domínguez and a double from Austin Wells preceded an 11-pitch at-bat between 24-year-old rookie Jorbit Vivas and veteran reliever Ryne Stanek. That battle ended with a run-of-the-mill grounder to Pete Alonso, but the Mets’ first baseman airmailed a wide throw home, allowing the go-ahead run to score.
“I just made an awful throw,” Alonso said. “That whole inning, this game, it’s on me. After that throw, the momentum got out of hand.”
With a season-high paid attendance of 48,028 at Yankee Stadium, the divided crowd broke into cheers as Domínguez slid headfirst across the plate to break a 2-2 tie. But as Alonso insinuated, the Yankees didn’t stop there, adding an RBI single from Paul Goldschmidt before the red-hot Cody Bellinger cracked the game open with a grand slam off Genesis Cabrera.
“I tried to enjoy the moment,” Bellinger said, though he noted Vivas’ at-bat “100% won us the game.”
“What an AB, man,” Aaron Boone added after bringing Vivas in as a defensive sub. “You could see his adjustment. Third or fourth pitch in, you felt him settle in a little bit. You felt him settle down.
“We get a break with the throw, although, I don’t know, Jasson was coming down that line so fast.”
Boone pointed out that Vivas has struggled against fastballs in his young MLB career, making the flame-throwing Stanek a tough matchup. Aware of the righty’s heater, Vivas simply strived for contact.
“He’s throwing 100 miles, so I don’t want to do too much,” he said. “I just want to put the ball in play and help the team.”
Bellinger, hitting .312/.393/.545 over his last 20 games prior to Sunday, bookended the scoring, as he drove in two in the bottom of the first after a Mark Vientos error and an Aaron Judge ground-rule double off David Peterson. Bellinger’s double down the line deflected off the glove of a diving Alonso.
“He’s swinging at pitches he needs to be swinging at, and his balance is where it needs to be,” Boone said, as Bellinger struggled early in the season. “I really think it’s as simple as that.”
The Mets cut the 2-0 deficit in half in the third inning, as Vientos singled and Brandon Nimmo walked before Jeff McNeil picked up a two-run, RBI single.
A leadoff walk to McNeil then came back to bite Max Fried in the fifth, as he eventually scored on a wild pitch that Wells could have blocked.
“You can’t be giving free passes to a team like that,” Fried said. “They’re going to take advantage of it.”
Sunday marked Fried’s second off night in a row, by his standards anyway.
The lefty, who knows the Mets well from his time with the Braves, totaled two earned runs, three hits, two walks, eight strikeouts and 102 pitches as his ERA “inflated” from 1.11 to 1.29.
“I thought his stuff was, again, really good,” Boone said. “They took a lot of tough at-bats against him. They made him earn it.”
Two of Fried’s strikeouts came against Juan Soto, resulting in eruptions from the Bronx faithful. Soto went 0-for-4 in his last guaranteed game at Yankee Stadium this season, though he did take a hit away from Wells with a running catch near the warning track in the fourth inning.
Judge, who embraced Soto on the field pregame, also made a pretty play, laying out for a looping Francisco Lindor liner in the third.
Asked about their brief pregame meet-up, Judge said he wished Soto, who finished the series 1-for-10 with four walks and three strikeouts, the best. He told him he’s “the best in the game, things like this are going to happen” and to “just keep playing your game.”
“It was good to see him, but happy we were kind of either [able to] walk him or not let him do any damage, especially in this series,” Judge continued.
The Yankees had a chance to break the 2-2 tie in the fifth inning, as an intentional walk to Judge gave them runners on first and second with two outs. Bellinger then worked a walk on four pitches to load bases, but Anthony Volpe swung at the first pitch he saw from Peterson and ended the inning with a weak groundout.
Peterson tallied six innings, two runs (one earned), three hits, four walks and four strikeouts over 101 pitches.
Volpe, meanwhile, failed to cash in with the bases loaded again in the seventh, as Huascar Brazobán struck him out with two away. Brazobán fell behind 3-0 in the count, but Volpe fouled off a couple would-be balls before whiffing on a low, inside sinker.
Now matter, though, as an outburst awaited the Yankees in the eighth.
“I thought all three games were really good,” Boone said. “We came up winning two of them and rode a big inning tonight late.
“Clearly, two really good teams having a little fun in May.”
With the regular season’s first Subway Series over — the crosstown rivals will meet at Citi Field in early July — the Yankees have the day off on Monday. They’ll begin a three-game series with the Rangers, who recently hired Boone’s brother, Bret, to be their hitting coach, on Tuesday.
Will Warren, coming off two impressive outings, will start the opener for the Yankees, followed by Ryan Yarbrough and Carlos Rodón. Patrick Corbin, a New York native and childhood Yankees fan, will pitch Tuesday for Texas. He’ll be followed by Jacob deGrom, who will make his first start in New York since leaving the Mets after the 2022 season.
Former Yankee Nathan Eovaldi will take the ball for the Rangers in the finale.
Originally Published: May 18, 2025 at 10:26 PM EDT
