Bellinger’s six RBIs power Yankees to series win over Mets

New York—A six-run eighth inning helped lead the Yankees to an 8-2 win over the Mets and a series win. Max Fried got the start for the Yankees, and David Peterson took the ball for the Mets. 

Fried retired Francisco Lindor, Juan Soto, and Pete Alonso in order in the top of the first inning. 

Paul Goldschmidt led off the bottom of the first inning, reaching on an E5, then a couple of batters later, the captain, Aaron Judge, bounced a ground-rule double into the stands in right field. The next batter, Cody Bellinger, came through with a two-run double to extend his hit streak to 13 games in a row to tie his career high, and make it a 2-0 Yankees lead. 

“He's swinging at pitches he needs to be swinging at, and his balance is where he needs to be,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said about Beli’s recent success. “I really think it's as simple as that, because he’s such a good hitter. … But I would say starting with balance and then swinging at good pitches, and these are the results for him.”

In the top of the second inning, the Mets cut the Yankees' lead in half with an RBI single to center from Jeff McNeil on the first pitch of the at-bat, making it a 2-1 game. 

In the top of the third inning, Judge made a beautiful diving play to help Fried retire the top of the Mets order in order. Fried also picked up two more strikeouts to put his total up to four in the game and got Soto to strikeout looking on a perfectly placed curveball. 

Fried picked up two more strikeouts in the top of the fourth inning to help work around a two-out double, bringing his total to six punchouts on the night. 

Fried walked the eight hitter McNeil to lead off the top of the fifth, and that came back to bite him as he would come across to score on a wild pitch later in the inning to make it a 2-2 game. Fried also struck out Soto for the second time tonight for his seventh strikeout of the ballgame. 

Trent Grisham reached via a one-out walk, and a couple of batters later, Judge was intentionally walked. Beli then worked a four-pitch walk to load the bases for Anthony Volpe. Volpe grounded out on the first pitch to strand the bases loaded. 

Fried worked a 1-2-3 top of the sixth inning to deliver his seventh quality start of the season in his 10th start. 

Max Fried’s final line: six innings pitched, three hits allowed, two earned runs, two walks, and eight strikeouts on 102 pitches. Fried threw his sinker 37% of the time, the fastball 33%, the sweeper 13%, the curveball 9%, and the changeup 8% of the time. Fried delivered another great start and had a little extra on his fastball tonight as he was consistently hitting 97 mph and hit 98 a couple of times. 

“I just thought it was a really great game,” Fried said. “It was intense, there was a lot of back and forth. We got it to a lead. They were able to grind their way and take advantage of some walks I had. You can’t be giving free passes to a team like that; they're going to take advantage of it. They were putting together really good at-bats, and at the end of the day, it was really important for me to keep us in it as long as we could. Then Beli broke it open at the end, which was really big.”

Jonathan Loaisiga replaced Fried on the mound in the top of the seventh inning. It looked like he had picked up the third out of the inning, but a big error from Oswald Peraza at third base allowed Lindor to hit with two runners on base. But no harm, no foul as Lindor flew out to end the threat, Losiagia also picked up his first two strikeouts of the season. 

Grisham and Judge worked two-out walks, then the next batter, Beil, legged out an infield single to load the bases. Volpe then went from ahead in the count 3-0 to striking out, swinging at ball four multiple times to strand the bases loaded, as Volpe alone has left eight runners on base tonight. 

Devin Williams came in to replace Loaisiga in the top of the eighth inning and retired the Mets in order, picking up a strikeout in the process. 

The Martian worked a leadoff walk in the top of the eighth inning, and a couple of batters later, Wells roped a double into the right field corner to put two runners in scoring position with one out. Jorbit Vivias, in his first at-bat of the game, worked a long 11-pitch at-bat and grounded one to first baseman Alonso, who airmailed the throw home to allow Dominguez to score and give the Yankees a 3-2 lead. The next batter, Goldy Knocks, came through with an RBI single to make it a 4-2 game. Grisham then worked a walk to load the bases, and then Beli launched a grand slam into the short porch in the right field to make it 8-2, a six-RBI day for Beli Bombs. 

“I try to enjoy the moment,” Beli said on his grand slam. “You never know when the ball is in the air, so I was just hoping that it had enough.”

In the top of the ninth inning, Tim Hill replaced Williams and picked up the final three outs of the game to end this one 8-2 and give the Yankees the series win. 

“I thought all three games were really good,” Boone said. “Obviously, we came up winning two of them, and rode a big inning tonight late. But it felt like it could go either way the whole time. I think clearly two really good teams, you know, having a little fun in May.”

The Yankees will have an off day tomorrow, then start a new series Tuesday night in the Bronx against the Texas Rangers. Will Warren will take the ball for the Yankees, and Patrick Corbin, whom the Yankees went after hard in the 2018-19 offseason, will start for the Rangers. The first pitch will be at 7:05 p.m. ET on the YES Network.

My thoughts on the game: Another great start for Fried as he remains undefeated (6-0) on the season with a 1.29 ERA. Williams and Loaisiga also both looked nasty out of the bullpen. Beli had the best game of his Yankees career, tying a career high with six RBIs. Goldy Knocks also had another great game. Judge was also on base three times. DJ also had another hit and has looked great on defense since coming back. All the plan B options after Soto went to the Mets came through tonight. Fried, Beli, Goldy, and Williams were all key contributors. The only downside to this game was the fact that Volpe left a small village on the base paths, but we won by six runs, so it is what it is. It's on to Tuesday, as the focus turns to hopefully taking two out of three from the Rangers.