Andrew Benintendi, Domingo German power Yankees to Subway Series win over Mets

The biggest crowd of the season gave The Bronx a playoff atmosphere and for a second straight game, the Yankees played like a team that can play in October. 

After beating Alek Manoah and Toronto on Sunday, they won back-to-back games for the first time this month with a 4-2 victory over the Mets — a somewhat surprising outcome given how the teams entered the Subway Series. 

The Yankees entered Monday having lost three of four, not to mention 14 of their last 18. 

And the Mets? They just took a series from the Phillies and had their ace, Max Scherzer, on the mound. 

But Domingo German out-pitched Scherzer and the Yankees got another sparkling game from Andrew Benintendi and Aaron Judge hit his first homer since Aug. 12, snapping a homerless streak of 41 plate appearances in front of 48,760 at the Stadium. 

Asked if his team had “made a statement,” Aaron Boone shook his head and said, “A statement will be made if we’re standing at the end. What we’ve been through here the last few weeks, I’m excited to play [well] against really good opponents with really good pitchers on the mound. We’ve got a long way to go in this thing. If we play this brand of baseball, we’ll be in good shape.” 

The Yankees pounced on Scherzer early, taking advantage of him hitting Benintendi to lead off the bottom of the first. 

After Judge struck out, Anthony Rizzo singled, sending Benintendi to third. 

With runners on the corners, DJ LeMahieu’s fly ball to right scored Benintendi, who slid in just before James McCann’s tag at the plate for the game’s first run. 

Judge then made it 2-0 with a two-out homer to right off Scherzer in the third. It was Judge’s 47th homer of the year. 

The Mets didn’t get their first hit until Brandon Nimmo’s infield single that a diving Rizzo couldn’t handle to lead off the fourth. 

A Francisco Lindor base hit with one out put runners on first and second for Pete Alonso after a visit from pitching coach Matt Blake. 

German got Alonso to hit a slow bouncer up the middle, where second baseman Oswaldo Cabrera — shifted toward the bag — turned it into an inning-ending double play. 

The Yankees added to their lead in the fifth. 

Isiah Kiner-Falefa led off with a ground-rule double and a sacrifice bunt by Marwin Gonzalez got Kiner-Falefa to third. 

Benintendi drilled a hard grounder down the right-field line — hopping over the bag at first — for an RBI double to give the Yankees a 3-0 lead. 

German survived the sixth, getting Brett Baty to line to left, where Benintendi made a nice running catch. McCann then drilled a line-drive single off German’s lower right leg. 

After being checked by the training staff, German remained in the game to face the top of the Mets’ batting order a third time. 

He responded by getting Nimmo to pop out to short and Starling Marte to line to right. 

German’s night ended in the seventh, when the Yankees again pressed their luck by keeping the right-hander in the game. With one out, Alonso popped to shallow right, where Cabrera tried to make the catch, but he bumped into Gonzalez — who was still in the game despite a three-run lead. 

Daniel Vogelbach then drilled a two-run homer into the Yankees bullpen in right-center to get the Mets to within a run. 

Ron Marinaccio entered and got the last two outs of the inning. 

With one out in the bottom of the inning, Kiner-Falefa reached on an infield single and advanced to second when Lindor made an errant throw to first on the play. 

After Gonzalez popped out, Benintendi delivered a single to right to make it 4-2. 

Jonathan Loasiga got the final four outs for his first save of the year. 

“This is a very confident team,’’ Bentintendi said. “Even going through some struggles, I don’t think we lost that.”