NEW YORK (AP) — After listening to Yankees fans rail at Juan Soto for two days, New York Mets star Pete Alonso thought about the possibility of a Subway Series this October.
“It’d be electric,” he said following the . “Any chance we can avoid the Van Wyck, that’d be great.”
Alonso would love the chance to play an environmentally friendly World Series entirely in New York and avoid the perpetually congested expressway leading to John F. Kennedy International Airport.
Subway Series spark memories of Don Larsen’s perfect game, clutch catches by Al Gionfriddo and Sandy Amoros, and David Cone coming out of the bullpen to retire Mike Piazza. With the Mets and Yankees leading their divisions a quarter of the way through the regular season, there’s a chance of the first Subway Series since 2000 but a long way to go.
Even for a regular-season meeting on a Saturday afternoon, the sellout crowd of 47,510 at Yankee Stadium was amped up — especially when booing Soto, who helped the Yankees reach the World Series last year and then bolted across town for a record $765 million, 15-year contract with the Mets.
“Typically I do a pretty good job of blocking the noise out,” Yankees pitcher Clarke Schmidt said. “There was a time where he was up I had to turn up the PitchCom because it was tough to hear.”
Winners of a record 27 titles but none since 2009, the Yankees lead the AL East at 26-19. The Mets, boosted by hedge fund owner Steve Cohen’s fortune, top the NL East at 29-17 as they seek their third championship and first since 1986.
Last year, the Mets lost in the National League Championship Series to the Los Angeles Dodgers, who beat the Yankees in the World Series. While there were 13 Subway Series from 1921-56 — six between the Yankees and Brooklyn Dodgers and seven between Yankees and New York Giants — there has been only one since.
“It’d be sick,” Alonso said. “That’d be probably the best postseason matchup ever because you don’t have to go on the road. You have seven home games. … You don’t have to worry about dealing with all the great wall of traffic out of JFK.”
A day after the Yankees won the , Francisco Lindor’s ninth-inning sacrifice fly off Fernando Cruz broke a 2-all tie and Edwin Díaz ended the game by getting Aaron Judge to swing over a 98.6 mph full-count fastball. A runner on each team was thrown at the plate, and an umpire interference call on himself by James Jean negated a Yankees double steal.
“That’s what you call a big league game, big league matchup. Every pitch was intense, every play,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said. “That’s what you pay for, to come and watch a big league game when you got two teams with a lot of superstars.”
Soto went 1 for 4 with a walk and is 1 for 6 with four walks in his first two games back in the Bronx, booed noisily each time he walked to the plate or touched the ball defensively. He threw some shade two pitches into his first at-bat Saturday — he tossed his mirrored sunglasses on a perfect spring afternoon, deciding he’d see better without them.
Soto and provided another moment of levity in the fifth inning Saturday when he shook a “no” to Schmidt after the pitcher started to the dugout following a 2-2 knuckle-curve at the low, outside corner. Jean called ball three, and Soto wound up walking.
“I thought out of the hand it was a ball and it was a ball,” Schmidt said.
Consistent throughout the season, the Mets are the only team that hasn’t had a three-game losing streak. And while players and staff are focused on the next game, fans have the luxury to dream ahead to a 15th Subway Series.
“I’m sure,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said, “it would be pretty cool.”
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