Mets face Yanks: 'So dang happy to be back'

NEW YORK -- A few minutes before the start of the first intersquad game at Citi Field in 10 months, Mets starter Rick Porcello began his slow walk from the bullpen to the home dugout. As he approached, a group of his teammates rose to their feet from underneath a pavilion in the stands, where they were socially distancing from what would otherwise have been a crowded dugout. They began clapping in a standing ovation for Porcello, who broke into a grin.

This, of course, was audible from just about anywhere in the ballpark on Saturday, because real fans were nowhere to be found. Outside of the cardboard cutouts arranged in seats behind home plate, and the fake crowd noise pumped in by the Citi Field PA system, there was no hint of them during the Mets’ 9-3 loss to the Yankees. Instead, the teams played within the boundaries that Major League Baseball’s COVID-19 protocols allowed.

• Box score

They played safe, socially distant baseball.

Key word: baseball.

“All of us are just so dang happy to be back,” Mets first baseman Pete Alonso said.

Considering how high the excitement on both sides ran, it was almost easy to forget that this was merely an exhibition -- that Opening Day will not take place until Friday, when the Mets host the Braves at Citi Field, at which point the 60-game season will begin. Earlier Saturday afternoon, Yankees manager Aaron Boone mused that “it’s pretty cool to arrive on Tom Seaver [Way] and walk into the park and know you are playing a game.”

The last time the Mets played here, Tom Seaver Way was called 126th Street. Its denizens never imagined they’d be spending April through June at home. Nor did they think their next game at Citi Field would be a Summer Camp tuneup -- the first exhibition between the Yankees and Mets in New York City in 27 years.

This one didn’t offer the same type of interborough pride that the Subway Series usually brings, but it featured plenty of implications for the 2020 Mets. One of the team’s newest members, Porcello, allowed three runs -- two of them on a homer Clint Frazier hit while wearing a facemask. For Porcello, the final line wasn’t nearly as important as the fact that he stretched out to five innings.

Jeurys Familia added 1 2/3 innings, working around a pair of Max Moroff errors to allow just one unearned run. (When manager Luis Rojas made a mid-inning pitching change, he stopped at the lip of the mound, making sure to stay 6 feet apart from both the pitcher and catcher.) Dellin Betances recorded three outs without issue, mostly sitting in the low-90s but pumping one pitch up to 96 mph. Lefty specialist Daniel Zamora struggled with his taste of MLB’s new three-batter minimum, allowing three runs without recording an out.

On the offensive side, Alonso and J.D. Davis produced RBI hits, while Yoenis Céspedes nearly beat out an infield single, running at less than full speed as he continues working his surgically repaired heels and right ankle into game shape.

Things like Betances’ velocity and Céspedes’ legs are baseball concerns, which, in New York City, aren’t likely to supplant coronavirus concerns anytime soon. Still, they’re worries the Mets are happy to have. In a video conference with reporters, Porcello noted how much of his life, and those of the players, coaches and others around him, has built to this moment.

“I think the most important thing is being able to bring baseball to our fans and to our country during this time,” Porcello said. “We’re knocking on the door of being able to do that. So it’s pretty cool.”

The next time Porcello faces another team will occur in the regular season, which is now less than six days away. It will be a game that matters, with Jacob deGrom on the mound against an NL East rival in the heat of late July.

Baseball stuff, better late than never.

“I’m so pumped up,” Alonso said. “This is one of the days that we were wishing and waiting for.”