Just before Juan Soto could play the villain, Francisco Lindor did it for him.
With the bases loaded and one out in the top of the ninth — and Soto looming on deck — Lindor hit a fly ball just deep enough for a sacrifice fly that scored Luisangel Acuña to lift the Mets to a tense 3-2 win over the Yankees on Saturday afternoon in The Bronx.
Edwin Díaz then retired pinch hitter Austin Wells, Ben Rice and Aaron Judge in the bottom of the ninth to seal it.
Judge worked a full count with the sellout crowd of 47,510 on its feet, but Díaz got him to chase an elevated 99 mph fastball to finish the day 0-for-5 — only the third time this season in 45 games he did not reach base.
“Today was a great team win,” Lindor said. “Good baserunning, good defense, good hitting, good pitching. To beat a team like that, you have to do a lot of things the right way and today was a good example of that.”
Fernando Cruz, who entered in the eighth to strand a runner on third, got himself into trouble in the ninth by walking Luis Torrens with one out, with Acuña pinch running for the catcher at first base.
Brett Baty then hit a ground ball to the left of DJ LeMahieu, who made a diving stop on it but could not get a handle on the ball to get off a throw.
Cruz then hit No. 9 hitter Tyrone Taylor with an errant sinker to load the bases for Lindor, who won it for the Mets (29-17).
The sac fly was hit to left-center field between Cody Bellinger and Jasson Domínguez.
Bellinger ended up taking it and his throw home was late, but he said after the game that Domínguez had the better lane to catch it and throw home, which the two had already spoken about.
“I heard it late and I was like, ‘I’m just going to catch the ball,’ ” Bellinger said. “We had a good conversation and I think it’s going to be good for the future.”
The late drama set up a rubber game showdown Sunday night between Max Fried and David Peterson.
Clarke Schmidt and Griffin Canning engaged in a pitchers’ duel — Schmidt lasting six-plus innings and Canning tossing 5 ¹/₃ — with both exiting in a 2-2 game.
LeMahieu, in a vintage game on both sides of the ball, and Bellinger drilled solo homers off Canning while the Mets got to Schmidt for both runs in the fourth inning that could have gone off the rails more than it did.
And of course there were more loud boos for Soto, who went 1-for-4 with a walk and a steal, with the atmosphere so noisy that Schmidt had to turn up the volume on his PitchCom during one of their at-bats.
“Kind of feels a little bit like a playoff game in a sense,” Schmidt said. “It’s a lot of fun being able to be out there in that atmosphere and intense moments. Anytime you see DJ LeMahieu throwing fist bumps or fired up, it’s a good sign it’s a high-intensity game.”
LeMahieu nearly took over the 2-2 game for the Yankees in the bottom of the eighth with the bases loaded and two outs.
But he smoked a pitch from Reed Garrett too hard, allowing the line drive to hang up long enough to reach Soto for the final out.
The Yankees (26-19) used some sharp defense to keep the game tied in the top of the seventh.
First, there was a relay from Bellinger (backing up a ball that ricocheted off the wall and over Domínguez’s glove) to Anthony Volpe to J.C. Escarra at the plate to nail Baty.
Then LeMahieu made a sliding play on Lindor’s grounder up the middle and fired to first to end the inning.
“It was a great baseball game,” manager Aaron Boone said. “It really was.”
Before Bellinger tied it with a solo shot off Canning in the sixth, the Yankees wasted a chance for a big inning in the fifth when they had runners on first and second with no outs.
Boone said he considered having Jorbit Vivas lay down a sacrifice bunt — and may have been covering for him not doing so — but instead the rookie infielder struck out before Rice lined out and Judge grounded out as the Yankees went 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position.
“They’re just playing [the bunt] aggressively,” Boone said of the Mets, who had the corners in for Vivas. “Not a lot of speed on the bases for us and I had the top of the order coming up. But yeah, definitely some consideration there.”