Brandon Nimmo hits walk-off double in the 10th inning as Mets snap skid with 4-3 win over Yankees to split Subway Series
- The Mets had lost nine of its last 10 games heading into Wednesday night’s game
- Buck Showalter’s team sit fourth in the NL East — 10 games back on the Braves
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Brandon Nimmo hit a game-ending double in the 10th inning as the New York Mets recovered from a string of mental and physical errors to beat the New York Yankees 4-3 on Wednesday night for a two-game Subway Series split.
While far from perfect, the victory provides the Amazins with a desperately-needed win after previously losing nine of its previous 10.
Isiah Kiner-Falefa stole home off an inattentive Brooks Raley as the Yankees scored two runs without a hit to take a 3-1 seventh-inning lead.
The Mets tied the score in bottom half when Ron Marinaccio hit Nimmo with a pitch and Starling Marte hit an RBI single – a rally that ended when Nimmo took a wide turn at second and was thrown out.
Then in the 10th, with Eduardo Escobar the automatic runner at second, Albert Abreu (2-2) struck out Mark Vientos. Nick Ramirez relieved and Nimmo hit a drive over Jake Bauers and off the wall in right-center. Escobar tagged up and sprinted home with a headfirst slide, giving the $355 million Mets just their second victory in 11 games and third walk-off win this season.
On a night when the Yankees´ Gerrit Cole and the Mets´ Justin Verlander combined to allowed two runs in 12 innings with 14 strikeouts and no walks, the game was decided against the bullpens.
Brandon Nimmo hit a walkoff double in the 10th inning as the NY Mets split the Subway series
The Mets willed themselves to a much-needed win after losing nine of its previous 10 games
For the Yankees, it was a game they gave up. Now, the Bombers prepare for a series with BOS
Dominic Leone (1-2) got his first win since joining the Mets last month. The Amazins made two errors and committed only the second shift violation in the major leagues this season.
With the score 1-1, Jeff Brigham walked Josh Donaldson leading off the seventh and Anthony Rizzo was hit by a pitch for the 209th time in his big league career. Kiner-Falefa hit a one-out grounder to shortstop, and second baseman Jeff McNeil made an offline throw up the first-base line that bounced off the mitt of a diving Vientos with IKF already across the bag. Donaldson scored for a 2-1 lead.
Raley relieved and Kiner-Falefa stole second on a 1-1 pitch to Billy McKinney, advancing to third when Francisco Álvarez´s throw skipped into center for an error. Kiner-Falefa crept down the third-base line and Raley never looked him back.
With Raley pitching from a full windup instead of the stretch, IKF was halfway home as he started his motion and slid across the plate while the ball sailed to the backstop. The Yankees had not pulled off a straight steal of home since Jacoby Ellsbury against Tampa Bay on April 22, 2016.
With Giancarlo Stanton on second base in the eighth, McNeil was cited for the shift violation for having a foot on the shortstop side of second. The only previous violation in the first season of the new restriction was called against the Chicago White Sox when they played Pittsburgh on April 9.
Before a sellout crowd of 44,121, Cole retired his first 12 batters, then gave up Francisco Lindor´s double off the wall in right-center and Tommy Pham´s two-out RBI double that bounced on the warning track. Pham is 11 for 29 against Cole.
Jose Trevino doubled leading off the sixth and scored on a one-out single by Bauers, who saw 24 pitches from Verlander in three at-bats. Stanton followed with a 118.3 mph grounder that Escobar turned into an around-the-horn double play, the hardest-hit ball off Verlander since Statcast started tracking in 2015.