Mets ride clutch Jeff McNeil homer to tense win over Yankees in Subway Series opener

The Mets are three-quarters of the way to ruling New York.

October will be the ultimate judge of that, but for now, the Mets have had their way with the Yankees in all three installments of the Subway Series, with a chance to make it a clean sweep on Wednesday.

After leaning on their offense to sweep a pair of games against the Yankees at Citi Field in late June, the Mets leaned on their pitching and decision-making against Aaron Judge on Tuesday night to secure a tense 3-2 win in front of a sellout crowd of 47,453 at Yankee Stadium.

Jeff McNeil’s two-run homer off ex-Met Michael Tonkin in the sixth inning proved to be the difference as two teams trending in different directions of late stuck to the script.

“They got a good ballclub,” Judge said after getting walked four times and then striking out in the bottom of the ninth. “It’s a back-and-forth game, high-energy game, lot of pretty fun games. The ones at their place, they kind of ran up the score on us, but it’s part of it. Today we didn’t get the win, but now we got to move on. We got another big one [Wednesday].”

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The Mets (52-48) improved to 28-13 over their last 41 games while the Yankees (60-43) sank further into their 11-22 skid, looking like they might need more help than their crosstown rivals ahead of next Tuesday’s trade deadline.

Most immediately, the Yankees need a better threat to protect Judge after the Mets spent most of Tuesday night taking the bat out of his hands with J.D. Davis and eventually Ben Rice batting cleanup behind him.

The drama built to a crescendo in the bottom of the ninth. After Edwin Diaz pitched two of the previous three days — including 28 pitches on Monday night — the Mets turned to lefty Jake Diekman with two lefties leading off. He got Trent Grisham to fly out before walking Juan Soto on four pitches.

Diekman then went on the attack against Judge and in a 2-2 count, caught him looking at a 96 mph fastball dotted on the inside corner for strike three.

Mets lineup much deeper than Yankees heading into stretch run

“Runner at second base, probably a different story,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said. “But roll the dice there and it worked out today.”

“He paints one on the corner there 2-2, it’s a tough one,” Judge said. “But I got to be ready for it.”

Rice then grounded out to end the game.

The Mets outscored the Yankees 21-9 in their two-game set in June — with Judge responsible for seven RBIs during that series — and then outmaneuvered them on Tuesday.

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After getting five innings of one-run ball from Jose Quintana — who matched Luis Gil as both left the game in the hands of the bullpens — Mendoza turned to Adam Ottavino, Alex Young, Dedniel Nunez, Phil Maton and Diekman to make it to the finish line.

The Yankees’ only damage against Quintana came on Gleyber Torres’ home run in the second inning.

The Mets tied it in the fifth when they loaded the bases and Gil drilled Francisco Lindor with a 99 mph fastball, though he rebounded and got the final two outs to avoid further trouble.

After McNeil’s go-ahead homer in the top of the sixth — his fourth home run in his last five games — the Yankees got one run back in the bottom of the frame on Alex Verdugo’s RBI double but left the tying run at third base.

On a night when Soto went 0-for-4 with a walk and Judge went 0-for-1 with four walks — one intentional and the other three all but intentional — the Yankees failed to make the Mets pay for it.

Davis, getting a rare start against the lefty Quintana, went 0-for-3 with two strikeouts and grounded into a double play while the Yankees overall went 1-for-9 with runners in scoring position and left 11 men on base.

“Tough one,” manager Aaron Boone said. “We just got to get the middle of our order a little more settled and hopefully that will come back to bite teams when they do do it and force them to go after Aaron.”

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