The New York Mets give themselves, Yankees a postseason boost

The New York Mets gave Yankees fans something to cheer about on Wednesday night after a brutal stretch for New York’s baseball teams.

This year is strange for a lot of reasons, but one of 2020’s weird little quirks is that it has Yankees fans rooting for the New York Mets at times. Wednesday night was another example of all the weirdness that comes with this crazy year.

While Deivi Garcia was twirling a gem for the Yankees against the Toronto Blue Jays, Mets fans were watching Rick Porcello do Rick Porcello things. If you don’t know what that means, it’s pretty simple. Porcello was putting the Mets into a deep, early hole they needed to find a way to overcome.

The former Cy Young winner gave up five runs and 10 hits in four innings. His ERA is up to 6.07 on the season and every time it’s his turn in the rotation, it feels like the Mets are fighting an uphill battle.

But Wednesday night was different because this time around, the offense was up to the task. A pair of runs here, two more there, and scraping across one more later in the game brought the Mets back from a four-run hole. Say what you want about this Mets team, but they still have some of that scrappiness that New York’s favorite Mets teams of all-time always seemed to possess.

Of course, the best Mets comebacks are usually finished off a big hit from one of the stars in front of a delirious Flushing crowd. Well, there were no fans in the stands for this one, but Pete Alonso delivered in a big way. His eighth-inning go-ahead home run capped off the comeback even though Mets fans were cheering from their couches.

And ironically enough, Yankee fans were jumping for joy too. The Mets’ comeback win over the Baltimore Orioles coincided with the Yankees cruising to victory against the Blue Jays. Entering Wednesday, the Yankees held a slim 0.5-game lead over the O’s for the final postseason spot. Now, just prior to their four-game set against Baltimore, the Yankees hold a 1.5-game lead.

The Mets are still on the outside looking in, but a postseason run isn’t out of the realm of possibility. After all, this is still the year 2020, right? So we’d be fools to say “never” in these times. The Mets are two games back of a National League Wild Card spot and although they have a few teams to jump to make it into the postseason, we’d be crazy to write them off.

The 2020 season has been nothing short of a disaster for both New York baseball teams. Injuries, slumps, and empty stands have defined baseball in the Big Apple.

But at least both fanbases had something to cheer about, if only for one night.