NEW YORK -- This matchup was more than just power-on-power. This was Oneil Cruz, the awe-inspiring rookie with generational tools, versus Jacob deGrom, the established, award-winning pitcher with generational tools. Cruz landed the first punch. deGrom landed the second. On this Sunday afternoon, the tiebreaker went to the rookie.

Cruz silenced and stunned Citi Field with a game-tying three-run home run off deGrom in the sixth inning, chasing deGrom from the game in the process. Cruz’s blast couldn’t prevent the Pirates from falling to the Mets, 7-3, and suffering a four-game series sweep, but it served as the latest exhibition of the talent that has caught attention around the league.

“That’s why he’s being talked about a lot,” said Mets manager Buck Showalter. “He’s got a great contact-to-damage ratio. If you're into exit velocities, it catches your attention. Obviously, he's a good-looking hitter that wreaks a lot of damage when he puts it into play. You can see why they're so excited about him in Pittsburgh."

The first faceoff between the talents went to Cruz, who led off the game with a jolt. deGrom got ahead in the count, 0-2, but Cruz worked the count full with three straight takes. On the payoff pitch, deGrom tried to put Cruz away with a 99.2 mph fastball, but he left the four-seamer over the heart of the plate. Cruz turned on the mistake and banged a 111 mph double off the top of the right-center-field wall, coming a couple of feet away from his first career leadoff homer.

For the next five innings, Cruz’s double was the only offense that the Pirates could muster. Following Cruz’s loud two-bagger, deGrom proceeded to retire the next 15 batters, striking out a mind-bending 13 in the process. In their second meeting, deGrom struck out Cruz swinging with a 99.8 mph fastball on the outside corner. Cruz, frustrated with the result, flung his bat and tossed his helmet. Series even, one apiece.

Three innings later, the two titans met again for the tiebreaker. The circumstances of this third and final meeting, though, were amplified.

The Pirates entered the sixth inning down by three runs, and with deGrom mowing down multiple batters per inning, that lead felt insurmountable. But the Mets’ ace started to show cracks. Zack Collins began the frame with a sharp single to center field. Jason Delay followed up by fouling off five pitches before muscling a bloop single into right field. With the Pirates down three runs, Cruz had an opportunity to tie the game with one swing.

He obtained the early advantage by laying off two pitches out of the strike zone, but deGrom evened the count with strikes on his next two pitches. After Cruz fouled off deGrom’s 2-2 fastball, deGrom tried to put the rookie away with a slider. Cruz golfed the pitch into the Pirates’ bullpen. Tie game.

"I actually looked at it again,” deGrom said. “Not a terrible pitch. I'm more mad about the at-bats before. The slider got a little more east-west than I wanted it. I wasn't able to get it down, and then I threw a bad changeup to do [Delay] a favor there. I just wasn't able to execute in that inning. That's what it boils down to."

“It was a brand new ballgame after that,” said third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes. “It definitely brought some life back into the dugout, being a brand new ballgame, and yeah, we had the chance to win by him tying the game up for us.”

Cruz stunned the crowd. Cruz stunned deGrom. Once Cruz concluded his jog around the bases, Showalter pulled deGrom from the game, unceremoniously ending an otherwise dominant outing.

The rookie has had a penchant for homering off elite pitchers. In addition to deGrom, a two-time National League Cy Young Award winner, Cruz has homered off Corbin Burnes, the reigning NL Cy Young winner, and Sandy Alcantara, a leading Cy Young candidate this season.

“The fact that as a young player, being able to continue to have at-bats like that, it's extremely important,” said manager Derek Shelton. “Oneil did a good job. The easy swing on the first, and the next one, that's a ball you hope hits the wall and gets a double and he ends up hitting it out."

For all the exhilaration that Cruz provided with the three-run home run, his swing was the extent of a Pirates offense that struck out 20 times, tying a Major League record and setting a franchise record for the most strikeouts in a nine-inning game.

“Sometimes you've just got to tip your cap,” Hayes said. “We had a lot of strikeouts. I guess maybe trying to shorten up a little bit, get the ball in play, anything. [deGrom is] just one of those guys where if he's on, no one in the world's going to hit him. I feel like we did a pretty good job making him work, and obviously Cruz had those two big hits, tied the game with that three-runner and gave him the shower ball. I feel like we did as good as we could against him.”