The Subway Series That Could Decide New York Baseball’s Postseason Fate

What makes for some of the most exciting and memorable games in any professional sport is when there is so much on the line leading into them. Intra-city bragging rights, a rivalry game, playoff race implications, each of these things can make an individual game or series worth ten fold in their end result and the anticipation leading into a game that much stronger. 

The upcoming weekend in New York and the tri-state area will certainly be an important one, both inside the realm of sports and out. On Saturday, the city, and nation more broadly, will commemorate the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center towers, remembering the profound, long-lasting effect that the mournful day had on its citizens and the way both responded in the aftermath. Football returns from it’s eight-month hiatus as the Giants and Jets kick off their respective seasons on Sunday. 

On the baseball mound, the Yankees and Mets are set to meet each other for the second half of their annual Subway Series at Citi Field in Queens. 

Everytime the two teams face off for New York bragging rights, there’s always a competitive atmosphere surrounding the contest. It’s the top-class, storied Yankees versus the little brother, ambitious Mets, who are looking to show they deserve more attention in their town. 

This series, however, will carry much more meaning than usual. That’s precisely because there is a lot on the line for both squads. 

For both New York clubhouses, it’s been a tale of two halves as their respectively turbulent seasons roll on towards October. The Yankees and Mets have each seen their own highs and lows at different times, yet both have now gone from teams poised to be playoff contenders to two struggling organizations desperately trying to remain relevant in their current races. With the races heating up, they find themselves at a Subway Series that could be their saving grace if they can take the victories from it. 

Just two months ago, the Yankees felt they had finally altered the course of their season in the right direction, going out before the MLB trade deadline and acquiring two new big hitters–Joey Gallo and Anthony Rizzo–in multi-prospect deals with the Texas Rangers and Chicago Cubs. With Gallo and Rizzo, the struggling bats of the previous three months would receive a boost and the Yankees would have a powerful, 4-man group of hitters in the middle of their lineup with Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton. 

Suspectingly, they received just that. Following the July 29th trades, the Yankees became a dominant force in the American League and a renewed threat knocking on the door of the Tampa Bay Rays in the AL East. Over the next month of games, the Yankees would go on a winning tear, taking 20 of 24 games including a streak of 13 straight games from August 14th-27th. By the time the streak ended, the Bombers had given themselves a record 20 games above .500 and a comfortable 6.5 game lead in the first AL Wild Card Spot. 

On the Mets front, while nobody expected them to do it prior to the season, the team opened up their 2021 campaign on fire. At least by NL East standards. They were not winning games in large numbers like the Yankees, however they took advantage of the state of their weak division and compiled some smaller winning patches to hold a 48-40 record by the All-Star break, which had them in first place in the division. 

With the NL East continuing to disappoint given the fragility of the other teams, perhaps outside of the Phillies, there was anticipation building that the Mets would run away with the division pennant and cruise into the playoffs. They also went out and acquired their one new weapon in Javier Baez in a trade with the Cubs before the deadline, and they already had their own star pieces in Pete Alonso and Francisco Lindor. 

At different times, both organizations had competing deep into October on their minds. Yet now, the scripts have completely reversed on them and it is uncertain whether their names will be in the playoff pictures at all in three weeks. 

Since losing their winning streak on August 28th at the Oakland Athletics during a coast trip, the Yankees have lost their winning ways–and the bats they spent so much money to acquire–entirely. In the last few weeks, the team has sat on a record of 2-10 with a losing streak of 6 straight games and 10 out of the last 12. Their struggles have featured terrible hitting and pitching by their top names–notably Joey Gallo who is averaging .130, the lowest mark of his career–and inexplicable errors on defense. These factors and others have led the Yankees to barely split their recent home series with Baltimore and be swept in the same building by Toronto, both teams the Yankees are capable of handling. 

The Mets have seen their NL East division title hopes get squandered as well by similar mistakes, but also by on and off the field drama and scandals. For those off the field, time has been taken away by the Javier Baez thumbs down charade with the fans and the Zach Scott DWI incident that led to his arrest in the beginning of September. First place in the NL East has now dropped to chasing the Phillies for the spot and a mere .500 record. 

Entering this weekend’s series, both teams will be looking to outjest each other not solely for bragging rights, nor their city amid the sorrowful date, but for the possible salvation of their playoff hopes. The Yankees are amid a 5-team dogfight for the two AL Wild Card spots and have seen themselves fall to the second spot behind Boston with Toronto trailing by half a game. The Mets are far out of the NL wild card, but sit just one game and five games behind the Phillies and Braves respectively for the NL East division. Reclaiming the division might be their last chance of making baseball’s dance, so the margin for error in Queens is extremely minute. 

In the strategy side of things, the keys to winning will come in fixing the patterned failures that have been holding these teams back. For the Yankees, that’s the silence of their bats and the costly errors that shouldn’t be happening with a professional team. For the Mets, it’s blowing their leads late in games and just remaining out of any distracting drama that takes away their focus from the game at hand. 

If all goes to expectations, New York might see a tied series heading into Sunday night and the final game of the set. If that is the case, the stakes will be raised even higher for the Yankees and Mets to steal one more game for their respective campaigns. 

So New York, don your jerseys and American colors, remember the fallen and the brave heroes, and get ready for this renewed Subway Series at Citi Field. For the ride or die fans, pray hard that your team takes it, because this series might be the one that decides your team’s postseason fight in the end.

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