Yankees take Game One of the Subway Series at Citi

The New York Yankees defeated the New York Mets by the score of 5-1 on Friday night. Ivan Nova started for the Yankees and battled for five innings. He was in trouble pretty much all night but he only gave up a run. The Yankees bullpen did a really nice job. The Yankees offense jumped out early and that was all they would need. Jon Niese wasn’t horrible but he got hit hard early and couldn’t recover from them. The Mets offense was shut down tonight, they had been rolling on their recent road trip.
Nova pitched five innings giving up one run on seven hits. He walked two and struck out three. Nova improved his record to 8-4 with a 4.12 ERA. It was said that he could pitch his way out of the rotation with this game because of Hughes coming back soon. The Yankees have a decision to make now but are still not sure what they will do, they could go to a six man rotation. Luis Ayala walked one and struck out one in 2/3 of an inning, Cory Wade gave up a hit and a walk in one inning and Boone Logan struck out the only batter he faced. Dave Robertson pitched a perfect inning with a strikeout, Hector Noesi gave up a hit in 1/3 of an inning. Noesi has pitched well out of the bullpen but he will head back to AAA Scranton on Saturday when Bartolo Colon is activated. Mariano Rivera gave up a hit in 2/3 of an inning.

Niese pitched six innings for the Mets and gave up three runs on nine hits. He walked two and struck out seven. He had a rough first inning and then settled down. Pedro Beato pitched one inning giving up an unearned run. He walked one and struck out two, Tim Byrdak got out the only batter that he faced and Bobby Parnell pitched 2/3 of an inning giving up a hit and striking out one. D.J. Carrasco pitched one inning giving up a hit and a run with two walks. Niese saw his record drop to 7-7 on the season.

Nick Swisher had a hit for the Yankees, Curtis Granderson had a hit and a walk and Mark Teixeira had a hit, two RBI and two walks. Alex Rodriguez had two hits and an RBI, Robinson Cano had two hits an RBI and a walk and Russell Martin had a walk. Eduardo Nunez had four hits and an RBI, it was his first four hit game of his career. Nunez has done a good job defensively and gotten better defensively but he needs to tighten up his defense. Derek Jeter is expected back on Monday and Nunez will go back to the bench. Teixeira, Cano, Rodriguez and Nunez all had a double. The Yankees were 4-19 with runners in scoring position and they left 11 men on base.

Jose Reyes had two hits, Justin Turner had three and Carlos Beltran had a hit and two walks. Daniel Murphy had a walk, Jason Bay had a hit and a walk and Ronny Paulino had a hit. Ruben Tejada had a hit and an RBI and Josh Thole had a hit. The Mets were 2-10 with runners in scoring position and left 11 men on base.

In the first inning the Yankees jumped on the Mets for a 3-0 lead. Teixeira had a two run double and Cano had an RBI double. In the second inning Tejada had an RBI single for the Mets to make it 3-1. Nunez had an RBI single in the eighth to make it 4-1 and in the ninth Rodriguez had an RBI double to complete the scoring at 5-1. Rodriguez hit a shot that would have been out of just about any other ballpark. Citi Field is huge and that is why Mets players have had problems with it.

The Yankees won the first of three in this series. The two teams will play on Saturday afternoon at 4:00PM. It will be Bartolo Colon and Dillon Gee in the pitching matchup. The Mets dropped back to 500 and the Yankees are a season best 18 games over 500. The Yankees are 12-4 in interleague play which is the best mark in the majors. The Yankees remain 2 ½ games ahead of the Boston Red Sox in the AL East. Boston won in Houston on Friday night.