The player they were chasing was Starling Marte, who hit an RBI single in the ninth inning that gave the Mets a 3-2 victory over the Yankees at Citi Field on Wednesday night for a two-game sweep of the Subway Series. Escobar’s leadoff double in the ninth against Wandy Peralta fueled the winning rally. Tomas Nido sacrificed Escobar to third and Brandon Nimmo reached on an infield single before Marte ended it. The Mets won their third straight and extended their NL East lead over the Braves to three games. Gleyber Torres resurrected the Yankees with a two-run homer against David Peterson in the eighth that tied the game at 2-2. It came after Max Scherzer, on his 38th birthday, had held the Yankees to seven shutout innings. Left-hander Peterson walked Anthony Rizzo to start the eighth before Torres homered over the right-field fence. The blast was the 16th of the season for Torres, who entered with an .846 OPS over his previous 18 games. Peterson was booed off the field after hitting Matt Carpenter. The Mets celebrate their victory over the Yankees. Jason Szenes Starling Marte’s single gave the Mets a win over the Yankees. Jason Szenes The Yankees went 0-for-7 with runners in scoring position, leaving them hitless in 15 at-bats in such situations for the series. Scherzer mostly had Aaron Judge, whom he struck out three times. The last of those contests came in the seventh, when Scherzer gave Judge a fourth slider over five pitches to get past him with the tying runs on base. Schercher stormed off the field into a jubilant Mets dugout, where his night’s work was celebrated. Overall, Scherzer allowed five hits and walked two with six strikeouts and one strikeout, lowering his ERA to 2.09. In five starts since returning from the injured list — he missed nearly seven weeks with a strained oblique — Scherzer has pitched to a 1.39 ERA with 45 strikeouts and four walks. Pete Alonso celebrates his home run against the Yankees on Wednesday. Robert SaboMax Schercher leaves the mound after striking out Aaron Judge. Robert Sabo Scherzer faced his first big test in the third when Judge struck out with two runners on base — Aaron Hicks and DJ LeMahieu had each singled — and two outs. Scherzer threw five pitches to Judge, hitting the slugger with a fourth slider in the at-bat. The Yankees had another shot against Scherzer in the fifth after Josh Donaldson doubled to lead off and Kyle Higashioka singled with two outs. But Scherzer retired LeMahieu on a groundout to Francisco Lindor, keeping the Mets’ lead at two runs. Pete Alonso’s homer leading off the second started the Mets. The homer was Alonso’s 26th of the season and extended his MLB lead in RBIs to 84, a night after he reached base four times in a Mets victory. A two-run homer by Gleyber Torres (l.) accounted for the Yankees’ only runs.Jason Szenes Lindor delivered a broken-bat RBI single against Domingo German in the third inning that gave the Mets a 2-0 lead. Nido doubled to lead off the inning. The Mets missed a chance against the Germans in the fourth. Daniel Vogelbach and Mark Canha reached on back-to-back singles to start the inning before German retired Jeff McNeil, Escobar and Nido followed. German lasted 4 ²/₃ innings and allowed two earned runs on five hits with seven strikeouts and two walks. The right-hander was removed on 82 pitches in the fifth inning. Lindor and Alonso both went into the inning, but were stranded when Lucas Luetge retired Vogelbach.
