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MILWAUKEE — After three games in two cities over two days behind almost too many comebacks to count, the New York Mets suddenly find themselves one game away from the National League Division Series.

The Mets overcame two early deficits in the first game of their wild-card series against the Brewers on Tuesday, stringing hits, walks and hit batters into a three-run second inning and a five-run fifth, and now have NL Central champion Milwaukee on the ropes after an 8-4 win.

“It’s hard to be tired when you’re playing playoff baseball,” third baseman Mark Vientos said. “I had a bunch of energy. I know all of us did. We were all excited, and we got the job done.”

All of this came about 24 hours after New York completed its regular season with a doubleheader in Atlanta that featured the Mets’ thrilling come-from-behind, 8-7 win in Game 1, thanks to Francisco Lindor‘s dramatic go-ahead two-run homer in the ninth.

After losing the second game in Atlanta, the Mets indulged in a postgame celebration in the visiting clubhouse at SunTrust Park, took a flight to Milwaukee and by midday Tuesday were filtering into American Family Field. It just sounds exhausting, and when the Brewers grabbed a quick 2-0 lead in the first inning, few would have been surprised if the contest turned into a runaway.

Well, few outside of the Mets’ dugout would, because resilience has become perhaps the defining trait of the 2024 Mets.

“It’s a playoff game,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said. “Everybody’s tired. But once you play ball, you’ve got to go.”

The key blow during New York’s three-run second was Jesse Winker‘s two-run triple into the right-field corner, struck after the Milwaukee crowd booed Winker with vigor as he approached the plate.

Video from the broadcast captured Winker exchanging not-so-pleasantries with Brewers shortstop Willy Adames, his teammate in Milwaukee just last season, after Winker slid into third base. What was that all about? Winker wasn’t saying.

“I don’t really want to speak on it,” Winker said after pausing to consider the question. “I just want to focus on the game tomorrow.”

Perhaps Winker was just tired. You couldn’t blame him, but the veteran, picked up midseason by the Mets, has seen his team respond to adversity too many times not to chip in.

“I just feel like it’s the story of this team,” Winker said. “There’s been a bunch of things thrown at this team, and [we’re] just responding. It’s go time. You’re in the playoffs.”

After the long day in Atlanta a day earlier, the Mets’ bullpen plan was delicate, and that might have worked to New York’s advantage in the end. Because while Luis Severino struggled during the early innings, Mendoza stuck with him because he didn’t want to dip into his reliever corps too early. Severino found his footing and ended up giving the Mets six innings, giving up four runs and earning the win.

“The bullpen appreciated that,” Severino said. “When they came back to the dugout, they were really happy about me getting those six innings, coming back at there and trying to grind through that outing.”

On the other side, the well-rested Brewers pulled their top starter, Freddy Peralta, after only four innings and 68 pitches. Peralta gave up three runs, so the Brewers decided to start their parade of relievers early in the tradition of so many postseason games of this era.

Alas, the relievers who replaced Peralta — Joel Payamps and Aaron Ashby — gave up five runs between them during a two-out New York rally in the fifth, closing out the scoring. Ashby failed to retire any of the five batters he faced.

“[Peralta] is probably 18 pitches from where his limit is,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy said. “We take the lead in the game. We’ve got a full bullpen. It’s a playoff game. We’d like to get him to five because of our bullpen usage over the week, [but] you don’t do that. You’re playing to win tonight.”

Perhaps Peralta wouldn’t have caught his stride as Severino did, and maybe it wouldn’t have mattered because these Mets, who were 11 games under .500 in early June, are riding a wave that shows no signs of cresting.

“Yeah, we went back to Atlanta, played a doubleheader, came back here,” Mendoza said. “But nobody cares. We were ready to go. It showed. We’ve got to be ready to do it again tomorrow.”

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Volpe toss hits Judge as sloppy Yanks fall again

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Volpe toss hits Judge as sloppy Yanks fall again

NEW YORK — A blunder that typifies the current state of the New York Yankees, who find themselves in the midst of their second six-game losing streak in three weeks, happened in front of 41,401 fans at Citi Field on Saturday, and almost nobody noticed.

The Yankees were jogging off the field after securing the third out of the fourth inning of their 12-6 loss to the Mets when shortstop Anthony Volpe, as is standard for teams across baseball at the end of innings, threw the ball to right fielder Aaron Judge as he crossed into the infield from right field.

Only Judge wasn’t looking, and the ball nailed him in the head, knocking his sunglasses off and leaving a small cut near his right eye. The wound required a bandage to stop the bleeding, but Judge stayed in the game.

“Confusion,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “I didn’t know what happened initially. [It just] felt like something happened. Of course I was a little concerned.”

Avoiding an injury to the best player in baseball was on the Yankees’ very short list of positives in another sloppy, draining defeat to their crosstown rivals. With the loss, the Yankees, who held a three-game lead over the Toronto Blue Jays in the American League East standings entering June 30, find themselves tied with the Tampa Bay Rays for second place three games behind the Blue Jays heading into Sunday’s Subway Series finale.

The nosedive has been fueled by messy defense and a depleted pitching staff that has encountered a wall.

“It’s been a terrible week,” said Boone, who before the game announced starter Clarke Schmidt will likely undergo season-ending Tommy John surgery.

For the second straight day, the Mets capitalized on mistakes and cracked timely home runs. After slugging three homers in Friday’s series opener, the Mets hit three more Saturday — a grand slam in the first inning from Brandon Nimmo to take a 4-0 lead and two home runs from Pete Alonso to widen the gap.

Nimmo’s blast — his second grand slam in four days — came after Yankees left fielder Jasson Dominguez misplayed a ball hit by the Mets’ leadoff hitter in the first inning. On Friday, he misread Nimmo’s line drive and watched it sail over his head for a double. On Saturday, he was slow to react to Starling Marte’s flyball in the left-center field gap and braked without catching or stopping it, allowing Marte to advance to second for a double. Yankees starter Carlos Rodon then walked two batters to load the bases for Nimmo, who yanked a mistake, a 1-2 slider over the wall.

“That slider probably needs to be down,” said Rodon, who allowed seven runs (six earned) over five innings. “A lot of misses today and they punished them.”

Jazz Chisholm Jr.’s throwing woes at third base — a position the Yankees have asked him to play to accommodate DJ LeMahieu at second base — continued in the second inning when he fielded Tyrone Taylor’s groundball and sailed a toss over first baseman Cody Bellinger’s head. Taylor was given second base and scored moments later on Marte’s RBI single.

The Yankees were charged with their second error in the Mets’ four-run seventh inning when center fielder Trent Grisham charged Francisco Lindor’s single up the middle and had it bounce off the heel of his glove.

The mistake allowed a run to score from second base without a throw, extending the Mets lead back to three runs after the Yankees had chipped their deficit, and allowed a heads-up Lindor to advance to second base. Lindor later scored on Alonso’s second home run, a three-run blast off left-hander Jayvien Sandridge in the pitcher’s major league debut.

“Just got to play better,” Judge said. “That’s what it comes down to. It’s fundamentals. Making a routine play, routine. It’s just the little things. That’s what it kind of comes down to. But every good team goes through a couple bumps in the road.”

This six-game losing skid has looked very different from the Yankees’ first. That rough patch, consisting of losses to the Boston Red Sox and Los Angeles Angels, was propelled by offensive troubles. The Yankees scored six runs in the six games and gave up just 16. This time, run prevention is the issue; the Yankees have scored 34 runs and surrendered 54 in four games against the Blue Jays in Toronto and two in Queens.

“The offense is starting to swing the bat, put some runs on the board,” Boone said. “The pitching, which has kind of carried us a lot this season, has really, really struggled this week. We haven’t caught the ball as well as I think we should.

“So, look, when you live it and you’re going through it, it sucks, it hurts. But you got to be able to handle it. You got to be able to deal with it. You got to be able to weather it and come out of this and grow.”

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Former White Sox pitcher, world champ Jenks dies

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Former White Sox pitcher, world champ Jenks dies

Bobby Jenks, a two-time All-Star pitcher for the Chicago White Sox who was on the roster when the franchise won the 2005 World Series, died Friday in Sintra, Portugal, the team announced.

Jenks, 44, who had been diagnosed with adenocarcinoma, a form of stomach cancer, this year, spent six seasons with the White Sox from 2005 to 2010 and also played for the Boston Red Sox in 2011. The reliever finished his major league career with a 16-20 record, 3.53 ERA and 173 saves.

“We have lost an iconic member of the White Sox family today,” White Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf said in a statement. “None of us will ever forget that ninth inning of Game 4 in Houston, all that Bobby did for the 2005 World Series champions and for the entire Sox organization during his time in Chicago. He and his family knew cancer would be his toughest battle, and he will be missed as a husband, father, friend and teammate. He will forever hold a special place in all our hearts.”

After Jenks moved to Portugal last year, he was diagnosed with a deep vein thrombosis in his right calf. That eventually spread into blood clots in his lungs, prompting further testing. He was later diagnosed with adenocarcinoma and began undergoing radiation.

In February, as Jenks was being treated for the illness, the White Sox posted “We stand with you, Bobby” on Instagram, adding in the post that the club was “thinking of Bobby as he is being treated.”

In 2005, as the White Sox ended an 88-year drought en route to the World Series title, Jenks appeared in six postseason games. Chicago went 11-1 in the playoffs, and he earned saves in series-clinching wins in Game 3 of the ALDS at Boston, and Game 4 of the World Series against the Houston Astros.

In 2006, Jenks saved 41 games, and the following year, he posted 40 saves. He also retired 41 consecutive batters in 2007, matching a record for a reliever.

“You play for the love of the game, the joy of it,” Jenks said in his last interview with SoxTV last year. “It’s what I love to do. I [was] playing to be a world champion, and that’s what I wanted to do from the time I picked up a baseball.”

A native of Mission Hills, California, Jenks appeared in 19 games for the Red Sox and was originally drafted by the then-Anaheim Angels in the fifth round of the 2000 draft.

Jenks is survived by his wife, Eleni Tzitzivacos, their two children, Zeno and Kate, and his four children from a prior marriage, Cuma, Nolan, Rylan and Jackson.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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In search of infield options, Yanks add Candelario

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In search of infield options, Yanks add Candelario

NEW YORK — The New York Yankees, digging for options to bolster their infield, have signed third baseman Jeimer Candelario to a minor league contract and assigned him to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, the affiliate announced Saturday.

Candelario, 31, was released by the Cincinnati Reds on June 23, halfway through a three-year, $45 million contract he signed before the start of last season. The decision was made after Candelario posted a .707 OPS in 2024 and batted .113 with a .410 OPS in 22 games for the Reds before going on the injured list in April with a back injury.

The performance was poor enough for Cincinnati to cut him in a move that Reds president of baseball operations Nick Krall described as a sunk cost.

For the Yankees, signing Candelario is a low-cost flier on a player who recorded an .807 OPS just two seasons ago as they seek to find a third baseman to move Jazz Chisholm Jr. to second base, his natural position.

Candelario is the second veteran infielder the Yankees have signed to a minor league contract in the past three days; they agreed to terms with Nicky Lopez on Thursday.

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