The Suboptimal Subway Series: What’s at stake as Yankees, Mets meet without Aaron Judge or Pete Alonso?

Heading into the 2023 season, New York’s baseball teams were near the top of a bunch of lists: biggest payrolls, biggest offseason spenders, top World Series contenders. They were, per the projections, the top teams in baseball’s two best divisions.

In mid-June, as they prepare to meet for the first two-game Subway Series of the year, the New York Yankees and New York Mets are turning up on other lists — mainly the injured list and the less official rankings of most anxious fan bases. Entering Tuesday’s matchup at Citi Field, both teams are nine games back of first place, and both are missing their main power sources. The Yankees’ Aaron Judge is out due to a toe injury, while the Mets’ Pete Alonso is down due to a wrist injury suffered on a hit by pitch.

The Yankees’ situation is considerably less bleak than the Mets’. They are nine games back of baseball’s best team, the Tampa Bay Rays, but have a solid 38-29 record, which is good for a wild-card slot right now, despite Judge and others missing time and marquee free agent Carlos Rodón not yet taking the mound in a game. Still, the offense has struggled to break through without Judge, and this week, the Yankees dropped series against the Chicago White Sox and Boston Red Sox.

The Mets … well, let’s start here: Steve Cohen, the enthusiastic billionaire team owner now ponying up for the largest payroll in MLB history, spoke to the New York Post’s Joel Sherman over the weekend to say that he isn’t planning to fire manager Buck Showalter or GM Billy Eppler. So that’s how things are going. The Mets are 31-35 and three games back of even a wild-card spot after a disastrous stretch that saw them swept by the Toronto Blue Jays at home, swept via a series of whiplash-inducing heartbreaks by the Atlanta Braves and beaten in two out of three by the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Here’s what to watch for as the clubs collide this week in Queens.

No Aaron Judge, no Pete Alonso, no offense?

If you saw Willie Calhoun and Tommy Pham as key bats for these teams back in March, step right up and claim your prize. With Judge (19 homers) and Alonso (an MLB-leading 22) sidelined, both managers are improvising to find thump in their lineups.

The Yankees’ Aaron Boone has turned to Calhoun, a former top prospect who landed with the Yankees on a minor-league deal this offseason, as a top-of-the-order option in recent weeks, given that Calhoun brings terrific contact ability and some pop against righties. At the outset of the season, fans might have envisioned rookie shortstop Anthony Volpe stepping into that spot, but the top prospect has struggled mightily with the bat. He’s batting .186, and an off-day on Sunday that turned into a late-game appearance and key strikeout didn’t help matters.

Elsewhere in the Judge-sized void, Jake Bauers has given the Yankees a low-average, high-power spark, but he went hitless in the Red Sox series. With Giancarlo Stanton still seemingly limited to DH duty by a recent injury, Calhoun and Bauers will likely be manning the outfield corners. Center field is a bit of a question, as Harrison Bader won’t be back from the IL in time for this series. Instead, recent fill-in Billy McKinney will probably get the nod.

Showalter’s issues with the Mets are less injury-driven. Alonso is a huge piece of the lineup missing, but the Mets’ roster allows for flexibility to replace him. Mark Canha, typically an outfielder, and rookie Mark Vientos can play first. That has allowed more playing time for Pham, the veteran outfielder, and he has run with it. Since coming in for Alonso after his injury in Atlanta, Pham has six hits in 21 plate appearances, including a homer, six RBI and doubles in four consecutive games.

The Mets’ biggest power threat, though, is young catcher Francisco Álvarez. After a slow start, the 21-year-old who ripped through the minors with a preternaturally powerful bat has earned a promotion to the No. 2 spot in the batting order. Since May 1, Álvarez is hitting .260/.319/.635 with 11 homers.

The difference pitching can make

Even with that surge from Álvarez and signs of life from veterans such as Canha and Starling Marte, the Mets’ offense has not been able to overcome the pitching staff’s struggles. By park-adjusted ERA-, the Mets’ staff ranks as MLB’s third-worst, ahead of only the moribund Kansas City Royals and Oakland Athletics.

Yes, this is the team with the rotation fronted by Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander. Interrupted by injury and pocked with inconsistency, the should-be dynamic duo’s season has not come together quite yet. Scherzer, who starts Tuesday against the Yankees’ Luis Severino, actually has OK overall numbers. His 3.71 ERA is above average, though not up to his usual standards, and seems worse because of how close he has come to something better. His most recent start, against the Braves, involved four vintage Scherzer innings before a wavering fifth and a collapse in the sixth.

Verlander, meanwhile, has been alternating between one-run gems and total meltdowns. His latest time out, he gave up five runs (four earned) against Atlanta, so perhaps it’s time for a good performance this week.

The Yankees have pitching concerns of their own — they’re still awaiting Rodón’s debut, and Severino has gotten hit hard in his past two outings — however, the depth of useful arms in the Bronx is much stronger. Clarke Schmidt has looked terrific in recent starts, and the Yankees’ bullpen continues to shine as one of the game’s best behind Michael King and Clay Holmes.

Plus, 32-year-old Gerrit Cole is still a reliable ace, seven or more years the junior of Scherzer and Verlander, his friend and former Astros teammate. Even with a couple of rocky starts sprinkled in, Cole’s 2.84 ERA puts him among the game’s 12 best qualified pitchers in park-adjusted ERA-, and only six pitchers have thrown more innings thus far. Cole is set to duel with Verlander on Wednesday.

Are there bigger stakes in this series?

While every inch of ground matters for the Yankees in a brutal AL East and AL wild-card race, the season is much closer to a tipping point for the Mets. If you believe what Cohen told Sherman this weekend, then Showalter and Eppler are going to be given time to right the ship. That’s perhaps just out of necessity, though.

The Mets have a roster chock-full of underperforming veterans — the risks of an old, expensive team — for which the only solution is often patience and a smattering of young hitters for whom the best solution is … you guessed it: patience. Every loss, though, stretches the equation of the season.

Whether Cohen is particularly worried about his $400-plus million tab this season or not, the sub-.500 baseball is going to force significant decisions sooner or later. With Tylor Megill reaching the 200-inning mark for his career with an ERA approaching 5.00, it’s clear the Mets currently have no trustworthy pitchers under the age of 30 in the organization. And Kodai Senga, their best pitcher under 36, might not quite be ready to pivot to the American standard of pitching on four days’ rest, instead of five. This all looks different, and somewhat more tenable, if Verlander and Scherzer are lions in winter, as they have been in recent years.

So are there stakes? Yes. The Mets, with playoff odds down to 33.7%, need evidence that their narrow path forward is still at least viable. What Cohen chooses to do with the information gleaned might not involve firings, but every game — Subway Series or not — weighs heavily on his chances of finding success in this cash-fueled shot at the moon.