Game #50: Mets 9, Yankees 4

Walk-offs are fun. You know what else is fun? Blowouts at the expense of your rival in their building. Oh my.

(NYDailyNews.com)

Ike Davis's two-run single capped a five-run 1st inning as the Mets never looked back, beating the Yankees 9-4 and clinching their first Subway Series win since 2008.

The Good Stuff:

• Ruben Tejada got things going in the top of the 1st with a single off David Phelps and came around on Daniel Murphy's RBI double. After David Wright walked and Lucas Duda struck out, a second run came home on John Buck's RBI single. Rick Ankiel walked to load the bases, and while Marlon Byrd grounded into what should have been a double play, it turned into a third run when Jayson Nix booted it. Ike Davis was up next and hammered the nail in Phelps's coffin with a two-run single. When the dust settled and Phelps was relieved, the NL New Yorkers had a 5-0 lead over their AL rivals.
• What a relief it must have been to Jeremy Hefner, who threw his first pitch with the game already in hand. Hefner earned his first W of the season (and the Mets' first win in one of his starts) with a three-run, nine-hit, six-inning outing, complete with no walks and five strikeouts.
• More offensive prowess was showed in later innings: Byrd took advantage of the Little League ballpark that is Yankee Stadium with a solo homer to right in the 3rd, while Duda drove in two more with an opposite-field double in the 4th. Ankiel drove in the final run on an RBI single in the 9th.
• Gary Cohen had a fine game in the broadcast booth, charming the SNY audience on two separate occasions:
• When Travis Hafner came up to face Jeremy Hefner in the bottom of the 1st, Cohen channeled David Letterman at the 1995 Oscars with an "Oprah, Uma" moment.
• In the bottom of the 7th, Gare introduced the Mets' oft-used reliever as Scott "Every Minute" Rice. Well done, sir. Well done.

The Bad Stuff:

• Already in the discussion for demotion, Ruben Tejada injured his quad late in tonight's game. For those who want to speculate on how bad the injury is, note that Omar Quintanilla was pulled from his game with the Las Vegas 51s. We may be seeing the return of Mr. Q in the next couple days.

Final Analysis:
All of a sudden, everything is firing on all cylinders: 12 hits, quality starting pitching, a bullpen that holds leads. The result is a four-game winning streak, including three over the big, bad New York Yankees. Who are these guys?

Great to see another quality outing from Jeremy Hefner, who is quietly establishing himself as the Mets' third-best starting pitcher. It's especially nice to see him doing so well in the face of the immense tragedy of seeing his Oklahoma hometown ripped apart by last week's tornado.

With some sudden momentum going in their direction for once, the New York Mets will go into tomorrow night's Yankee Stadium finale attempting to do something they have never done before: sweep the New York Yankees in the Subway Series. This could make the season right here. Whoa baby.

MM