It’s debatable which team “true New Yorkers” root for, but the Subway Series over the last two seasons has belonged to the Mets.
In stunning fashion, the No. 7 train came whirling through Yankee Stadium in Monday night’s eighth inning and blazed a path of destruction that had to leave all New Yorkers dumbfounded.
Chris Young hit a two-run homer off Preston Claiborne to cap a three-run eighth, sending the Mets to a 9-7 victory in front of 46,517 in The Bronx.
“It was like a big college football game rivalry,” Young said after the Mets won their fifth straight against the Yankees dating to last season.
“You see an orange section out there in left field rooting for us and you’ve got the odds against you because there’s a lot more Yankee blue than there is out there for the Mets. I’m sure that will change when we go back to Citi Field. ”
For the second straight day, the Mets (18-19) rebounded from a late deficit to steal a victory.
On Sunday, the Mets trailed 4-1 against the Phillies in the ninth before tying the game and winning in the 11th on Ruben Tejada’s RBI single. This time the Mets emerged from a 7-6 hole in the eighth.
Jenrry Mejia (4-0) earned the victory by pitching 1 ¹/₃ scoreless innings only hours after moving from the starting rotation to the bullpen.
Kyle Farnsworth got the save with a scoreless ninth punctuated by Lucas Duda’s diving stop on Brian McCann’s grounder that became a game-ending 3-5-3 double play. David Wright was covering second base on the throw as part of the shift against McCann.
“I was lucky enough to stop it, and David made a great turn,” Duda said. “It was a great team win.”
Travis d’Arnaud, Curtis Granderson, Eric Young Jr. and Young all homered for the Mets on a night the Yankees bullpen surrendered five runs over the final three innings.
The Mets’ go-ahead rally in the eighth started with pinch-hitter Eric Campbell’s double — a ball that easily could have been ruled an error — off Yangervis Solarte’s glove. Duda followed with a shattered-bat single to center off Matt Thornton that tied the game 7-7.
“If we got Duda out, [David] Robertson was coming in,” Yankees manager Joe Girardi said. “I was going to use Robertson for a four-out save.”
But with one out, Claiborne entered for the Yankees and surrendered the two-run bomb to Young that put the Mets ahead.
Young Jr. began the comeback charge with a two-run homer against Alfredo Aceves in the seventh that sliced the Yankees’ lead to 7-6. The homer was Young Jr.’s first of the season and continued his solid production on the road — he entered batting .298 away from Citi Field, but only .183 at home.
Bartolo Colon was knocked out in the sixth after allowing his fourth hit of the inning, a single to Brett Gardner. The right-hander’s final line included 11 hits, seven runs, six earned, over 5 ²/₃ innings. It was Colon’s second awful performance in his last three starts.
Gardner inflicted most of the damage against Colon with a grand slam in the second inning.
“I just see [Colon] making some mistakes in the middle of the plate, which he doesn’t normally do,” Mets manager Terry Collins said.
Hiroki Kuroda gave the Yankees a chance by allowing four earned runs on seven hits over six innings with three strikeouts and no walks.
Granderson, back in his old stomping ground, breathed new life into the Mets in the sixth, with a two-run homer that made it 4-4. After Wright singled against Kuroda to lead off the inning, Granderson was given the green light on 3-0 and hit a shot into the right-field seats.
“This atmosphere creates intensity and it creates focus,” Collins said. “Guys are excited about being here. Tonight we just got some balls that we can drive.”