Friday night at Yankee Stadium offered as emotional an environment for a first-half regular-season game as humanly possible. A city that was already fired up for the biggest Knicks game in a quarter century was also coinciding with the beginning of the most anticipated Subway Series in regular season history.

Juan Soto returned to Yankee Stadium to a chorus of boos and went hitless, flying out to end the game as the Yankees jumped Tylor Megill early and held on late, winning by a score of 6-2.

The big storyline was, of course, Soto’s return. He was booed as he came up for his first at-bat and drew a five-pitch walk on some pretty uncompetitive pitches. Carlos Rodón seemed unfocused to start this one, as he basically let Soto walk to second base for just his 61st career stolen base despite essentially being picked off. Thanks to a nice play from Oswald Peraza, Rodón escaped without giving up a run.

Soto wasn’t greeted by overwhelming hostility when he ran out his old post in right; rather, the entire right-field bleachers turned their backs to him:

Megill came out a bit shaky like Rodón before settling in — for the first at least. After walking Trent Grisham, he struck out Aaron Judge, allowed a single to Cody Bellinger, and got out of the inning with a dotted strikeout of Jasson Domínguez.

The two pitchers traded zeroes, with Rodón retiring eight straight after the Soto walk. In the third, the floodgates opened. Jorbit Vivas singled, Judge walked, and Bellinger beat out an infield single to load the bases for Paul Goldschmidt, who broke his bat on a pitch down-and-in while sending it up the middle. Francisco Lindor nearly made an incredible play, only for him to throw it wide of Pete Alonso, allowing two runs to score, opening the scoring.

Domínguez drew a walk to load the bases for Anthony Volpe, who lofted a 3-1 sinker into right field, testing his former teammate’s arm. Soto threw a two-hopper to home plate, which wasn’t good enough to get Bellinger for a sacrifice fly. An RBI walk to Oswald Peraza would make it 4-0 and force Megill out of the game early, with Max Kranick finishing the inning.

Rodón got into a jam in the fourth, but escaped with only allowing one run on a Brandon Nimmo RBI single, stranding the bases loaded afterwards to keep it at 4-1.

With one out in the bottom half of the fourth, Judge roped a single and Bellinger lined a double to immediately put more pressure on the Mets. The Yanks eventually scored both on an RBI single from Goldschmidt and a grounder to second that Domínguez beat out to avoid a double play, making it 6-1.

Despite an overall good line, the Mets fought tooth and nail with Rodón for five innings. An outstanding over-the-shoulder catch by Goldy got one of his final three outs in the fifth, but Rodón finished it himself with two on and two out, getting his fifth strikeout on a slider to Alonso. He finished with four walks—three to Soto—but five overall productive innings against a very good offense, lowering his season ERA to 3.17.

Jonathan Loáisiga came on for his season debut in the sixth. In his first MLB appearance in 13 months, he gave up a one-out double to Brandon Nimmo, but was able to get the next two outs to keep the lead at five. The Yankees offense went dormant against Jose Buttó, but their bullpen continued to hold the line.

The Mets got another extra-base hit off of Mark Leiter Jr. when Tyrone Taylor doubled with one out. However, Leiter fanned Lindor and got a groundball out of Soto to end the inning, his first batted ball after three walks.

Devin Williams came on for the eighth inning and went right to work, mowing down the heart of the Mets’ order on 14 pitches with a trio of strikeouts — including a K of his old Wild Card foe Alonso.

Dedniel Núñez came in and got two quick outs for the Mets, but almost let the Yankees get some insurance in the bottom of the eighth, as Grisham walked and Judge notched yet another multi-hit game. Bellinger ripped a ball 102 mph to right field, but couldn’t get it to drop as the game went to the ninth.

Yerry De los Santos came on for the Yanks in a 6-1 game in the ninth and wouldn’t make it easy. Starling Marte struck out and Francisco Alvarez fell behind 0-2, but De los Santos’ command escaped him, walking Alvarez. While he bounced back to strike out Brett Baty, he also walked a pinch-hitting Jeff McNeil to flip the lineup and bring Lindor up with two out.

Boone clearly did not want to use Luke Weaver after he was used a bunch in Seattle, but his hand was forced after Lindor poked a changeup way off the plate for an RBI double down the left-field line with two strikes. The score was 6-2, all but forcing a pitching change with Soto up.

In the most theatrical ending possible, Weaver induced a game-ending fly out of his 2024 teammate, wrapping up the series-opening win. As a bonus, the Knicks absolutely eviscerated the Celtics a few miles south to advance to the Eastern Conference Finals!

The Yankees will go for the series win tomorrow, as Clarke Schmidt faces off against Griffin Canning tomorrow at 1:05 EDT. Unlike Sunday, tomorrow will be on YES.

Box Score