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On a Friday night that began with an emotional pregame ceremony that honored all those lost 25 years ago in the Sept. 11 terror attacks, the Yankees kept pace in their division race, holding on late to beat the Mets 6-4 for their fourth straight win in front of a sellout crowd of 47,410 in The Bronx.
Cody Bellinger crushed a three-run homer off Nolan McLean in the second inning that proved to be the difference, thanks in large part to a strong start from Carlos Rodón, as the Yankees (85-62) remained three games back of the Rays in the AL East with 15 games left.
They also moved to 5 ¹/₂ games clear of the Red Sox for the top AL wild card.
The Mets (68-79) threatened to play spoiler, coming alive late against the Yankees bullpen to nearly come back from a 5-1 deficit before David Bednar finished off a five-out save.
Ben Rice added another home run as part of a three-hit game while Luis García Jr. chipped in three hits and some slick defense at first base to support Rodón, who struck out eight across 6 ¹/₃ innings of two-run ball.
After the left-hander pitched into the seventh inning for the first time this year, Paul Blackburn relieved him and got into more trouble, letting the inherited runner score on a single by A.J. Ewing that made it 5-2 before loading the bases.
But Brent Headrick bailed him out, snagging a line drive right back to him off the bat of Francisco Lindor — after a fan waving a Palestine flag ran onto the field and caused a delay — to escape the jam.
Headrick then created problems for himself in the eighth, when a single and two walks — the last one a 10-pitch battle with Carson Benge — loaded the bases with one out, at which point Aaron Boone called on Bednar. He got two fly balls, one of which was a sacrifice fly to cut the lead to 5-3, to end the inning.
After Ryan McMahon provided some insurance in the eighth with an RBI single, Ewing led off the top of the ninth with a home run off Bednar. But the Yankees closer eventually slammed the door by getting ex-Yankee Juan Soto to ground into a double play to end it.
The Yankees tagged Nolan McLean for a career-high 10 hits across five innings in which he allowed five runs. They were on him from the start, as they loaded the bases with no outs in the bottom of the first on singles from Rice and Bellinger and a walk from Aaron Judge. After García ripped a line drive that Marcus Semien caught at second base, Spencer Jones roped a single through the left side for the 1-0 lead.
But the Yankees wasted a chance for something bigger as George Lombard Jr. grounded into an inning-ending double play.
That loomed large in the top of the second, when the Mets tied the game with some help from a miscommunication in the Yankees’ outfield. One out after Rodón walked Mark Vientos, Semien hit a single to left-center field between Bellinger and Jones, with both looking indecisive as to who was playing it before Jones tried and let it go under his glove. The error allowed the runners to each move up 90 feet, putting Vientos in position to score when Christopher Morel grounded out to deep shortstop.
But the Yankees took the lead back for good in the bottom of the second in a rally that began with a one-out single from Anthony Volpe in his second game back from Triple-A replacing the injured Jazz Chisholm Jr.
Rice followed with another single on a 10-pitch at-bat before Bellinger — whose father Clay was a Yankee in 2001 at the time of the 9/11 attacks and later became a firefighter — should have drawn a walk, taking a 3-1 pitch out of the zone that was called a strike.
But he made the most of it, belting the next pitch into the right field seats for a three-run shot that made it 4-1.
