Steven Matz excellent again as Mets take Subway Series opener from Yankees
Take a look around the league with Big League Stew’s daily wrap up. We’ll hit on all of the biggest moments from the day that you may have missed, while providing highlights, photos and interesting stats.
The Yankees and Mets kicked off the most important regular season series in Subway Series history on Friday night at Citi Field.
Note we said regular season. Obviously their World Series matchup in 2000.takes precedence, but this is the first time they’ve played meaningful baseball against each other in August or September since, well, the beginning of time.
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The first-place Mets emerged victorious in the opener, defeating the second-place Yankees 5-1 behind a Steven Matz gem and a trio of home runs.
Beginning with Matz, the Mets right-handed rookie made some history on his way to his fourth victory. In six innings, Matz allowed one run on seven hits, becoming the first pitcher in franchise history to allow two or fewer runs in each of his first five career starts. Worth noting, Matz has now allowed six earned runs total in his career. As a batter, he’s driven in five runs.
Matz didn’t help his own cause in Friday’s game, but his teammates brought some thunder against Yankees ace Masahiro Tanaka. Both of the Mets runs in Tanaka’s six innings were solo home runs. Lucas Duda hit a line drive off of the facing of the second deck in the second, which got the Mets on the board. In the sixth, Daniel Murphy broke a 1-1 tie with his own no-doubt blast to right-center.
From there, it was a battle of the bullpens. That advantage went to the Mets, as Hansel Robles, Addison Reed and Jeurys Familia combined to throw three scoreless innings. Juan Uribe provided the Mets insurance, cracking a two-run shot against Chasen Shreve.
With the win, the Mets evened the season series at two games apiece. They also held their ground on the Nationals, who won 5-4 in 10 innings against Miami. Their magic number is eight.
BLUE JAYS PUSH DIVISION LEAD TO 4 1/2 GAMES
The AL East race isn’t over, but the Toronto Blue Jays are making the climb awfully difficult for New York. With their 6-1 victory over the Red Sox, they’ve opened up a 4 1/2 game lead with just over two weeks left to play.
The return of Marcus Stroman was the story again for Toronto. In his second start off the disabled list and his first at Rogers Centre this season, Stroman was excellent again, tossing seven innings of one-run ball. His return might just prove to be the biggest story in baseball in September, and could be the final piece of the Blue Jays puzzle.
Offensively, Toronto continued raking even without Troy Tulowitzki. In fact, just about all of their big boppers were unusually quiet, but it didn’t matter. Justin Smoak picked up the slack, driving home two with a fourth-inning double. Ryan Goins and Cliff Pennington also chipped in RBIs.
ASTROS CONTINUE SLIDE, FALL TO LAST-PLACE A’S
The Houston Astros have problems all right, and they’re quickly running out of time to solve them.
With Friday’s 4-3 loss to the Oakland A’s, the Astros have now lost five straight and are getting dangerously close to losing their grip on a postseason spot.
Coming off a four-game sweep at the hands of the West leading Rangers, Houston needed to get healthy quickly against the Oakland A’s. That did not happen on Friday. Despite jumping out to a 3-0 lead after three innings, the game slipped through their fingers.
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Most of the damage was inflicted by journeyman infielder Danny Valencia. In the fourth inning, Valencia went back-to-back with Josh Reddick to cut the lead to one. In the eighth, he gave Oakland the lead with a two-run shot against Pat Neshak. That blast gave Valencia a career-high 16 home runs this season, and it would prove to be the game winner.
If there’s a silver lining for Houston, it’s that Texas lost as well, meaning the division deficit stays at 2 1/2 games. In the wild card, the Minnesota Twins were rained out against the Angels, so Houston’s lead shrinks to one game there. It could have been worse, but the forecast for Saturday is not so good either. Not with Sonny Gray waiting to take his turn.
INDIANS THUMP WHITE SOX, CONTINUE CLIMBING IN WILD CARD
If there’s going to be a stunning late-season run to the postseason this year, it’s coming from the Cleveland Indians. Buried in last place in the AL Central as recently as Aug. 24, they’ve climbed to third in the division and .500 overall following their 12-1 win against the White Sox.
Most importantly, they’re only three games behind the Astros in the wild card race. Of course, they also have to leapfrog both the Twins and Angels, but if they keep playing like they did Friday anything is possible.
The Indians took advantage of shaky White Sox defense to score six unearned runs in the third inning against Chris Sale. Carlos Santana capped the inning with a grand slam. They also got a home run from rookie sensation Francisco Lindor. He took Sale deep in the seventh.
The offense was more than enough for Cody Anderson, who allowed one run in his 6 2/3 innings.
Want to see more from Friday’s slate of games? Check out our scoreboard.
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Mark Townsend is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @Townie813
