Rare last-place feat hangs over Mets, Yankees indicting

For 5 hours and 13 minutes as Sunday afternoon wore on, we were a city of two last-place baseball teams thanks to some miraculous ninth innings that took place 1,050 miles apart and five minutes apart in one from the other.

First, at 4:44 p.m., a Washington Nationals named Jeter Downs hit a home run away from the fielders at Nationals Park, scoring old friend Dominique Smith and capping a six-run ninth inning that helped the Nats reach at 8-7. victory over Stivos. This ensured that the Nats would be dragged into a virtual tie with the Mets at the bottom of the NL East, actually a few percentage points ahead of them.

So at 4:44 the Mets officially became the team in last place. Five thrilling minutes later, inside loanDepot Park in Miami, the Yankees cemented their place at the bottom of the AL East when Marlins’ Jake Burger smoked a walk to shortstop Tommy Kahnle, capping a remarkable five-run ninth inning and giving the Fish. their own upset 8-7 victory.

At a time of the summer when we generally thought both the Mets and Yankees would be chasing history, they did just that, just the kind of history you want to treat like a Russian manual, written in invisible ink, the better to easily forget.

Because those 5 hours and 13 minutes — until the Mets held off the Braves, 7-6, at Citi Field — featured a pretty remarkable development. The Mets and Yankees have officially shared the city for 22,406 days. Only on one of those days – August 5, 1967 – did they each hold the last post after August 1. Another day, according to the Elias Sports Bureau, they were both last, but the Yankees were tied with the Kansas City Athletics for last; that was two days later on August 7, 1967.

The next day the Yankees beat the Angels, 8-4—despite a 3-for-4 effort from future New York baseball contender Jim Fregosi—and that was the last time the Yankees would visit the final stretch of the season until 1990.

And that was it. Twice in 22,406 days. And when the Braves took a 3-0 lead on the Mets on Sunday night — making the total Braves 37, Mets 3 from Friday — it sure looked like we’d be seeing the teams sleep in separate baseball rooms. cellar for the first time in 56 years, plus six days.

The Mets, unfortunately, wanted no part of that dubious history.

(At least for now… )

But it’s hard to believe, the more we see both teams play, that this will be the last time we talk about this particular nugget. The Mets are still just a half game ahead of the Nats, and the Nats are playing with the carefree ease of a team that hasn’t put pressure on them in four years, and every game for the Mets feels like a referendum on whether they still care about playing more.

The Yankees?

Well, look, we’re starting to see something about the Yankees that mimics what we saw with the Mets at this time last month: the rating insists that fancy Yankees fans can broadcast “Dumb and Dumber” all they want – ” you mean there is a possibility?’ — while the brand of baseball they continue to play renders that notion as … dumb and dumb.

And Sunday was just the coup de grace, a chance to make a run against a winning team for the first time since June blew up like a quick M80 fuse on the Fourth of July, pushing them five games into the wild-card hunt. and — more relevant to that matter — two full games back of the Red Sox in the AL East basement with three games against the Braves’ pinball offense before the Sox come to town next week in a heated battle for fourth place.

In case you were wondering about the state of The Rivalry, let’s hear it from “Mad Men” character Pete Campbell: “It’s not great, Bob!!)

This also applies to the city’s dragging nines and pennant baseball season. Perhaps this day ended without teams languishing in last place. But there will be other days ahead.

Many other days.