Carson Benge Walks-Off Yankees in 10th Inning, Seals Mets’ 2-3 Subway Series Win
The Mets took the Subway Series in two games this weekend at Citi Field, beating the Yankees 6-3 Saturday and walking them off 7-6 in ten innings Sunday – all of it executed with a lineup that would be unrecognizable to anyone who watched Opening Day.
Friday — Game 1 | Yankees 4, Mets 2
Saturday — Game 2 | Mets 6, Yankees 3
Sunday — Game 3 | Mets 7, Yankees 6
Depleted, Not Deterred – The Cost of the Series
Before anything else, the price tag deserves acknowledgment. Clay Holmes, who had given the Mets’ makeshift rotation something resembling a foundation, exited Friday’s game with a fractured fibula after taking a comebacker off the bat of Spencer Jones.
It was the kind of freak injury that reshuffles everything – rotation construction, bullpen deployment, the whole picture of what this team’s ceiling looks like over the next six to eight weeks. Holmes was the linchpin, who even faced seven batters after the break. His absence now puts an enormous amount of weight on David Peterson finding a sustainable version of himself, and fast.
Despite Juan Soto knocking his 250th career home run, the Mets dropped Friday’s game to the Yankees 4-2, and with Holmes out, the weekend looked bleak.
Saturday: Manufacturing a Win the Right Way
But the Mets are instead capitalizing on the energy shift with grit, and a “never say die” attitude that fans haven’t seen since 2024.
The 6-3 victory over the Yankees on Saturday night was about as clean an example of process-over-outcome baseball as you’ll see from a lineup that is, functionally, a Triple-A roster with a few stars sandwiched in.
Carlos Rodón wasn’t sharp, and the Mets made him pay for it in the third inning in a sequence that captures exactly what this team has been executing on lately: Carson Benge doubled with two outs, and Rodón proceeded to walk both Bo Bichette and Juan Soto to load the bases.
A wild pitch that caromed off the back wall so violently that Rodón’s instinct to throw home only compounded the chaos, sailing past Austin Wells and allowing two runs to score on a single play. Benge went 3-for-4 — his fourth multi-hit game in the last five, and batting .342 over the last 21 games. The Mets’ ability to finally apply maximum pressure paid off.
Another Bulk Beauty from Peterson
David Peterson’s four-inning bulk outing was a reminder of how much this team needs him to be more. Eight strikeouts, good stuff – but 82 pitches in four innings, six hits, three walks, and a constant pattern of deep counts.
He made the most important out of his night when he struck out Chisholm with runners on first and second in the fifth to preserve a 3-2 lead, but the efficiency problem is not going away on its own. Without Holmes, Peterson has to become something more than a pitcher who can limit damage while being constantly in crisis.
Mark Vientos was the offensive anchor. With Soto beginning to heat up again and occupying the three-hole with the threat that demands, Vientos’ protection value in the four spot is enormous – and Saturday he validated exactly that.
In the fifth, following a Benge single and an intentional-walk-adjacent free pass to Soto, Vientos lined a double down the left-field line to score both runners and push the lead to 5-2.
Two innings later, with runners on second and third off Benge and Soto singles plus a Soto stolen base, Vientos hit a ground ball toward the first-base hole that gave Jazz Chisholm no angle at the plate. Three RBI on the night, and 14 in 12 May games.
He’s doing exactly what the lineup construction requires of him.
The game’s decisive sequence, though, was Luke Weaver’s seventh-inning escape act. Brooks Raley had ceded a run and loaded the bases with nobody out, and the Yankees – with the middle of their order due up – had every reason to believe they were about to erase a 5-3 deficit.
Weaver entered and needed 11 pitches to record three outs: strikeouts of Amed Rosario and Trent Grisham on changeups they chased out of the zone, followed by Anthony Volpe grounding to shortstop on a fastball for the force.
It was methodical, unhurried, and devastating. Weaver has now inherited seven runners over his last 11 appearances and stranded all seven.
Devin Williams closed it out for the save – his eighth straight scoreless appearance – and the Mets had evened the series heading into Sunday.
Sunday’s Comeback Kids
The Sunday finale was, in some ways, a mirror of every frustrating thing about this team’s recent history – then the clutch gene kicked in.
The Mets trailed 6-3 entering the ninth, a deficit they had been unable to overcome in the eighth inning or later in 91 consecutive games.
Freddy Peralta had been baffling at times – just two hits, four strikeouts across five-plus innings – and thoroughly undone at others, walking six batters and allowing the Yankees to score four runs in the sixth on a single hit, aided by a pair of errors from the outfield.
Sean Manaea absorbed length but surrendered damage of his own, including a bases-loaded walk to Volpe in the seventh. The margin felt insurmountable, until it wasn’t.
Benge reached on a single to open the ninth against David Bednar. Bichette ripped a grounder up the middle. Soto grounded into a force out, and Vientos struck out swinging. Down to the final out, Taylor – who had already cost the Mets runs defensively – stepped in and demolished a three-run homer just fair inside the left-field foul pole to tie the game at six.
The multi-season streak of late-inning futility was over. The ball barely needed to be fair.
Taylor’s homer didn’t just tie the game – it ended a stretch of late-inning passivity that had started to feel like identity for New York.
“Baby Mets” Piece Together Walk-Off
The tenth inning was a masterclass in small-ball execution under pressure.
Vientos started a 3-6-3 double play in the top half to kill a Yankees threat with runners on the corners.
In the bottom half, A.J. Ewing – who had reached base four times on the day between a hit and three walks while executing textbook situational at-bats – bunted Marcus Semien to third from second with one out.
The Yankees deployed a five-man infield. Benge hit a chopper up the middle; the infield converged, all five defenders colliding as they tried to make a play, and Semien scored standing up. Walked-off and series won.
Ewing deserves his own sentence here. He continues to look not just comfortable but legitimate at this level – composed in the box, disciplined with the strike zone, and willing to sacrifice himself when the situation calls for it. That sac bunt in the tenth set up the final act. You could’ve almost written this.
Things Are Looking Up
This Mets team is undersized and outgunned on paper. With what feels like 80% of their Opening Day roster is on the IL. The rotation’s best arm is now out with a fractured fibula.
And yet this weekend, they out-executed the Yankees at nearly every critical juncture – using lineup construction intelligently, deploying their bullpen with precision, and grinding through at-bats with a patience that manufactured runs when the power wasn’t there to force them.
The Vientos-behind-Soto dynamic is working. Weaver and Williams are functioning as high-leverage weapons. Benge and Ewing have turned weak spots in the order into a consistent offensive catalyst.
The loss of Holmes looms, and it cannot be minimized – but these #MayMets have been injected with grit and baseball IQ – and things really seem to be looking up in Queens.
