The Yankees began to resuscitate their season when they played the Mets in July.
They took another step towards burying it with an embarrassing loss to their crosstown rivals on Friday night.
The pitching was brutal, the fielding was laughable and the bats once again were silent in a 10-3 defeat to the Mets in front of 37,288 at Citi Field, as the Yankees lost their season-worst seventh straight to open the Subway Series.
And the Mets, who came into the game having lost three of four to the Nationals and Marlins, got back to .500 (71-71), sparked by Tylor Megill and three hits by Javy Baez.
In losing for the 11th time in 13 games, the Yankees matched their worst 13-game stretch since also going 2-11 to close out the 2000 regular season, according to Katie Sharp of Stathead.
“Just a poor performance,’’ Aaron Boone said. “Period … Just a frustrating, awful start to the series.”
The manager could use many of those words to sum up much of the last two weeks, as the Yankees have slipped in the standings — although they stayed half a game ahead of the Blue Jays for the second wild card because Toronto lost to Baltimore.
This defeat included plenty of goats. Jordan Montgomery allowed a season-high seven runs in just 3 ¹/₃ innings, Gary Sanchez had a miserable performance behind the plate and the infield defense was not much better.
After not leading at any point during the Blue Jays’ four-game series sweep in The Bronx that ended Thursday, the Yankees went ahead in the top of the first on Friday.
Brett Gardner tripled with one out and scored on an Aaron Judge grounder.
The Mets tied it in the bottom of the inning.
With runners on first and second and two outs, Baez singled to left. Joey Gallo’s strong throw home easily beat Jonathan Villar to the plate, but Sanchez froze and somehow missed the tag on the sliding Villar.
Villar was initially called out on the play, but the Mets challenged it and the call was reversed, resulting in a tie game.
It was a stunning mental and physical error that displayed what bad shape the Yankees have been in since the end of the 13-game winning streak that seems to have happened three years ago rather than just two weeks ago.
Gallo put the Yankees up again with a solo homer off Megill with one out in the second, but the Mets rallied against Montgomery, scoring five runs in the bottom of the third.
Two walks and a single loaded the bases with no one out and Pete Alonso walked to force in a run.
Baez then hit a sharp grounder to third that was stabbed by Gio Urshela. Urshela fired home, but the throw was wide. Sanchez tried to keep his foot on home plate instead of coming off to catch the ball and it got by him for a throwing error on Urshela.
With the bases still loaded and no one out, McNeil laid down a bunt that went for an RBI single and a 4-2 lead. The Mets added two more before the inning was over.
Megill made the lead hold up, striking out a career-high 10 in seven innings, as the Mets stayed five games behind first-place Atlanta in the NL East.
Luis Rojas was pleased his team made the Yankees pay for their mistakes.
“Gio Urshela made a throwing error and he’s made some of the best defensive plays I’ve seen a third baseman make [over] the last few years,’’ the Mets manager said. “Gleyber [Torres] is a pretty good player and made a throwing error. And Gary made a couple [of mistakes]. … We can’t count on that, but we did take advantage of that tonight and it created more momentum for us.”
Momentum is something both teams have lacked lately — especially the Yankees.
Yet DJ LeMahieu echoed Boone in saying that the Yankees still had a chance to salvage their season.
“We’ve probably been the streakiest team in the league,’’ LeMahieu said. “One good game, the tides can turn in a hurry, like we’ve seen all year. Hopefully quickly.”
“I think we need to just get back to having fun,” Montgomery said. “Play loose and go right after teams. We know we’re talented. We just came off a [13]-game winning streak. That doesn’t just happen.”