Before the Subway Series gets underway for the second time this season on Tuesday night, the Yankees first had to get through the Tampa Bay Rays on Monday afternoon as they tried to salvage a split of a four-game series.
New York did so with a 9-1 win in which the offense exploded for 15 hits, receiving contributions from up and down the lineup. The onslaught comes after the Yankees scored just five runs in the two games prior (both losses) and right before they host the Mets for two games.
Why is that relevant? Well, if you recall, former Yankee and current Met pitcher Luis Severino threw some jabs at the Bronx Bombers following the All-Star break when he said, partly tongue-in-cheek, that the Yanks only have two good hitters in Aaron Judge and Juan Soto.
While Soto proved once again that he’s a great hitter with two home runs on Monday, multiple other players in the lineup (including Judge) had great offensive performances as well.
Austin Wells and Anthony Volpe had back-to-back homers and each had multi-hit games while DJ LeMahieu hit his first home run of the season as he continues to try and get back into form since his foot injury. Oswaldo Cabrera also added two hits and two RBI.
“It was a lot of fun today,” Wells said. “It’s always great when the lineup is rolling and everyone is getting on base and I think we’ve been getting on base and it was fun to cash them in today.”
Manager Aaron Boone was also impressed with what he saw out of his offense on Monday and said his team used the heels of Sunday’s game where New York scored four runs in the final three innings as a jumping off point for the series finale.
“Yeah I mean we gotta get those guys going,” he said after the win. “There’s a few of those guys that I feel like are trending well here, whether it’s a few days, whether it’s a few weeks, whether it’s good at-bats today. So really up and down the lineup today everyone kinda contributed with quality at-bats.
“If we do that – obviously we’re not gonna score nine every day – but I feel like on the heels of yesterday where I felt like we had a lot of good at-bats, we carried that into today and we were able to hit the ball out of the ballpark.”
The Yankees launched five home runs in Monday’s game to give them 146 on the season, 11 off the Baltimore Orioles for the most in the majors. However, 60 of those blasts belong to Judge and Soto.
Enter Severino.
The right-hander will not face his former team when the two clubs get together starting on Tuesday as the Mets chose to go with two left-handed starters in Jose Quintana and Sean Manaea against the Yanks who have struggled against lefties this season.
A long-time Yankee who pitched for them just last year, Severino is still close with a number of his ex-teammates and has a group chat with some of them which is where he got some guff for “ducking” his old team.
“They talk s—t about me… like ‘you’re afraid of us’,” Severino said last week, to which he responded: “I’m not afraid. Right now, you only have two good hitters.”
It was all in good fun and made for friendly competition, but, of course, the comments made their way to the Yankees who were asked to respond.
For the most part, players and coaches knew the manner in which Severino made his comments. Boone chimed in and admitted that his team has taken its “lumps at times” but brought up how high they rank in terms of runs scored. In fact, after Monday’s nine-run game, New York now leads the majors with 508 runs scored – a response of its own.
“It is what it is. They can think whatever they want,” Soto said. “At the end of the day, we trust and believe in every single guy in here and I think we have everything that we need to show them that we can do it.
“I mean, we did it in the first half. We dominated most of the first half so I think when a team does that I don’t think it’s only about one or two players – it takes every single guy in the lineup and our relievers, bullpen, everything. So I think it’s not only a two-player team, it’s a really good team right now.”
The Yankees are a really good team with Monday’s victory giving them 60 wins for the season – 1.5 GB of the Orioles for the AL East division lead.
As for the Mets, they still hold the third and final NL Wild Card spot entering play on Monday. A win against the Miami Marlins to split their own four-game series (just like the Yankees did with the Rays) would, at the very least, keep them there before the start of the Subway Series.
Of course, there is still plenty of season to be played for both teams. And while the two-game set at Yankee Stadium between cross-town rivals should be exciting regardless, there’s no doubt some extra juice when both teams are chasing the playoffs.
The Yanks did their job to respond on Monday, now it’s time for the Mets to do theirs.
“We’re just gonna try to win games,” Soto said. Whatever happened in the past is in the past. We’re focused on what’s gonna happen in this series, we’re gonna try to win that series and keep it rolling.”
“We want to win. It’s not even so much about the Mets, it’s just where we are in the season and what we’re fighting for and what we’re kinda going through and trying to get ourselves right and like they’re the next ones in the way… It’s not overly personal for me,” Boone added.
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