Another good weekend in the Bronx:
For a team that is having trouble scoring, the most welcome sight is a grooved fastball or a hanging curve. The Mets are as good at pummeling those pitches as any team. But batters cannot hit those pitches if they do not exist. And last night they were few and far between.
Chien-Ming Wang, sinkerballer extraordinaire, compounded the Mets’ frustration by inducing ground ball after ground ball over eight and two-thirds innings in the Yankees’ 8-2 victory at Yankee Stadium. When he was not throwing his sinker, he was firing 95-mile-an-hour fastballs — on his way to a career-high 10 strikeouts — and leaving the Mets wondering exactly where that came from.
“He was really throwing hard,” said Carlos Beltrán, who went 1 for 4 and drove in the Mets’ final run on a single in the ninth. “I didn’t know he was capable of throwing 95, 96, 97.”
Alex Rodriguez drove in three runs, including two on a towering homer in the first inning, and Jorge Posada and Johnny Damon each homered and had two runs batted in. Wang allowed two runs and six hits in winning his fourth consecutive start.
He did so while pitching with a stiff neck after sleeping funny on his right side Saturday. He received ultrasound therapy and heat packs before the game but said he did not expect to miss a start.
The Yankees have won 13 of 16 games this month, which is more or less the opposite of how the Mets have fared. The Mets fell to 3-12 in June, losing their fifth series in a row, although they retained their two-game lead over the Atlanta Braves in the National League East. Asked if he felt the urge to speak to his team, Manager Willie Randolph said: “No, keep playing. Keep grinding through this. We just have to get back to winning.”
Next up, Colorado.
