NEW YORK (AP) — Maybe it’s the start of a Subway Series ride?
For the first time in 24 years Saturday, the New York Mets and New York Yankees both won a playoff game on the same day.
Brandon Nimmo and the Mets pulled off another late comeback, scoring five times in the eighth inning at Philadelphia to beat the rival Phillies 6-2 in the opener of their National League Division Series.
About 2 1/2 hours later, the Yankees finished off a 6-5 victory over the Kansas City Royals in the Bronx behind a clutch hit and an acrobatic catch from slumping left fielder Alex Verdugo in Game 1 of their American League Division Series.
All five previous times the Mets and Yankees won postseason games on the same day came in 1999 and 2000. The most recent was Oct. 11, 2000, when the Yankees evened the AL Championship Series with a 7-1 victory at home over the Seattle Mariners in Game 2, and the Mets beat the Cardinals 6-2 in St. Louis to open their NL Championship Series.
The crosstown rivals ended up meeting in the World Series later that month for the only time, with the Yankees beating the Mets in five games for their third straight championship and fourth in five years.
That was the first Subway Series in New York City since 1956, when Don Larsen pitched a perfect game to help the Yankees knock off the Brooklyn Dodgers.
The wild-card Mets and AL East champion Yankees have baseball’s two biggest payrolls this season, at more than $300 million apiece. Both teams have reached the best-of-five Division Series for the first time since 2006, when the Yankees were upset by Detroit in an ALDS and the Mets advanced to the NLCS before losing Game 7 at home to St. Louis.
Last season, both New York teams missed the playoffs for the first time in nine years.
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AP Sports Writer Josh Dubow contributed to this report.
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