Mets’ Clay Holmes fractures fibula in Subway Series loss
· Yahoo Sports
The Mets came into the Subway Series riding high, coming off a three-game sweep of the Detroit Tigers with one of the best pitchers in the National League lined up to face the slumping Yankees.
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It didn’t quite go according to plan. Clay Holmes ended up fracturing his fibula in the defeat, another injury for the struggling Mets.
Such is the theme of the Mets’ 2026 season thus far.
Holmes had his worst start of the season in a 5-2 loss to the Yankees on Friday night at Citi Field, the first of six Subway Series games and the first of three in Flushing. Juan Soto hit the 250th home run of his career, the only blemish on an otherwise stellar outing by right-hander Cam Schlittler.
There was hope for the Mets (18-26) for a brief moment in the bottom of the seventh after Schlittler came out of the game. Fernando Cruz came in with a runner on first and two outs, gave up an infield single to Marcus Semien, then moved the runners over with a wild pitch. Rookie outfielder A.J. Ewing popped up a 2-1 fastball, giving Aaron Judge an easy catch in right field.
While there’s no doubt the Mets have been playing better since the calendar turned to May, the old problems continue to plague them. Offense is hard to come by, especially with runners in scoring position. Ewing, along with an improved Carson Benge, gave the Mets some energy this week, and may well continue to do so, but against Schlittler, they went quiet.
So too did the rest of the lineup. Schlittler (6-1), whose ERA is second only to Shohei Ohtani’s in the majors despite having made more starts than the Los Angeles Dodgers’ star, kept the Mets to only the Soto homer over 6 2/3 innings. The Mets managed only two hits off the rising young righty, striking out nine times and walking twice.
The Yankees (28-17) took four runs off Holmes (4-4) over 4 1/3 innings, the first team all season to score more than two against him. The issue was that Holmes couldn’t get outs on the ground with his sinker. The pitch that’s made him so good this season was hit for line drives in the third and fourth innings, instead of ground-ball outs and double plays. Holmes struggled to command it as well.
He threw his sweeper for strikes, getting half of his eight strikeouts on the pitch, but the one pitch he needed, he didn’t have.
Holmes got the first two outs in the third before the Yankees rallied for three. They loaded the bases in the fourth, and this time, Holmes managed to get out of the fourth inning unscathed, unless you count the comebacker he took off his foot.
Spencer Jones drilled him with a ball that came off the bat at 111.1 MPH, hitting his right foot and deflecting past the foul line. It was ruled a single, and sent the trainers out of the dugout to check on Holmes, who appeared to be in some pain. He stayed in the game, but then walked Anthony Volpe on four pitches, three of them sinkers. After striking out the next two, Ben Rice lined one to left, loading the bases.
Judge swung on the first pitch from his former teammate, popping up a sweeper to end the inning.
By then, Holmes’s pitch count was up in the 80s. The Yankees made him work. He was pulled in the fifth inning with one on and one out, having thrown 95 pitches. Austin Warren got one out before allowing the inherited runner to score.
Soto homered off Schlittler in the bottom of the seventh. But then Rice took right-hander Craig Kimbrel over the fence to lead off the ninth, and Mets fans hit the exits, missing a ninth-inning run and leaving Yankee fans to celebrate the victory in enemy territory.