NEW YORK — The Yankees led by three in the bottom of the ninth inning Sunday at Citi Field. Their closer was on the mound. They had two outs and nobody on. The Mets had not won a game when trailing entering the ninth in 91 consecutive opportunities.
That streak ended on a curveball from David Bednar that did not break.
Tyrone Taylor crushed a three-run homer down the left field line to tie the game. The Mets won it 7-6 in 10 innings on Carson Benge’s chopper up the middle, claiming the Subway Series two games to one and sending the Yankees back to the Bronx with a road trip that has gone from troubling to alarming.
How the Yankees built a four-run cushion
This is the part of the recap that makes the ending hurt. The Yankees did almost everything right for six innings.
Ben Rice opened the scoring in the third with his 15th home run of the season off Freddy Peralta. That alone was historically notable. Rice and Aaron Judge (16) are now just the third pair of Yankees teammates to reach 15-plus home runs in the team’s first 47 games, joining Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris in 1961 and Mantle and Yogi Berra in 1956.
Peralta tied his career high with six walks before being pulled in the sixth. Anthony Volpe drove a two-run single up the middle. Pinch-hitter Amed Rosario added a sacrifice fly. Bo Bichette dropped a routine pop fly off Trent Grisham’s bat in shallow left field for an error that let another Yankees run cross. The Yankees scored five runs in the inning on just three hits.
Volpe added another RBI in the seventh, drawing a bases-loaded walk that pushed the lead to 6-3. It was Volpe’s first RBI from a walk this season.
Elmer Rodriguez, making his second Yankees start of the season after being recalled Saturday to fill Max Fried’s rotation spot, was solid. He allowed one run on five hits across 4 1/3 innings, giving the Yankees exactly the kind of stabilizing outing they needed from him.
Bednar’s ninth-inning collapse
Benge and Bichette opened the ninth with singles. Soto grounded into a fielder’s choice, putting runners at the corners. Vientos struck out. The Yankees were one out from a series win.
Bednar’s first pitch to Taylor was a curveball that hung in the middle of the strike zone. Taylor pulled it 404 feet down the left field line. The ball sliced inside the foul pole. Three runs scored. Tie game.
It was only Bednar’s second blown save in 12 chances and the first time in 20 appearances this season that he had allowed more than one run. Taylor’s shot was only the second homer he has given up all year. The breakdown was an outlier. The damage was anything but.
Taylor was asked about the at-bat and explained that he had a plan walking in.
“Awesome, that’s all I could say,” Taylor said. “I was just happy to contribute to the team and do my part. I was anticipating [a curveball]. We had a good plan in the dugout. I saw him throw Mark a few, so I was anticipating it.”
The 10th inning that ended the road trip
Devin Williams, the former Yankees reliever now closing for the Mets, kept the Yankees off the board in the 10th. He retired Austin Wells on a 3-6-3 double play with runners on the corners. The struggling Wells came up empty in the biggest Yankees spot of the day.
In the bottom of the 10th, the Yankees brought in Tim Hill. A.J. Ewing sacrificed automatic runner Marcus Semien to third. The Yankees shifted left fielder Max Schuemann into the infield as a fifth defender. Luis Torrens was hit by a pitch.
Benge then hit a chopper just over the mound. Schuemann gloved it on the infield grass. Anthony Volpe and Schuemann collided as the play unfolded. Semien scored without a throw.
Benge described the moment from his angle.
“I saw them collide, and I was like ‘Yeah, Marcus has got that,'” Benge said. “But once it went over the pitcher’s head, I kind of knew that he was scoring on that one.”
Game over. Series over. Road trip over.
Where the Yankees stand now
The Yankees dropped to 28-19. They are now two games behind the Tampa Bay Rays in the AL East and have lost eight of their last 11. The road trip ended at 2-7. They were swept in Milwaukee, lost four of six combined in Baltimore and Queens and are returning home with momentum at its lowest point of the young season.
Judge addressed the team’s stretch and pointed to the home schedule ahead.
“Guys are playing tough and making the plays they need to, but just coming up a little bit short,” Judge said. “We’ve got to have a short memory and move on and get ready for the [homestand] because we’ve got a big division opponent [Toronto] coming in.”
Boone defended his bullpen despite the way Sunday unraveled.
“I think they’re all capable of getting big outs and they have throughout this year,” the Yankees manager said. “We just had a terrible road trip where we certainly had some tough ones.”
The Yankees open a homestand Monday against Toronto. Ryan Weathers (2-2, 3.00 ERA) gets the ball against left-hander Patrick Corbin. The Yankees badly need a reset. Sunday at Citi Field made sure they will not get to start one quietly.
Who is to blame for the dramatic loss?
