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In the weeks leading up to their first two meetings at Citi Field, the New York Mets seemed headed for a second straight losing season and possible sell off at next week’s trade deadline, while the Yankees appeared poised to dominate the American League.

Instead, the Mets are firmly in the National League wild-card race while the Yankees are still trying to shake a lengthy slump heading into the finale of the season series Wednesday night at Yankee Stadium.

At 52-48, the Mets are four games over .500 for the third time after earning a 3-2 win on Tuesday. The victory capped a day in which they returned from a 6-4 win in Miami at around 5 a.m., due to a flight delay.

After Jeff McNeil hit a tiebreaking two-run homer in the sixth inning, the Mets are attempting to go 4-0 against the Yankees in 2024 and sweep the season series for the second time (2013).

“We’ve had travel delays before,” McNeil said after hitting his fourth homer in five games since the All-Star break. “We were all prepared, and we showed it out there.

The road win gave the Mets a 30-15 record since falling to 22-33 following their 10-3 home loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers on May 29.

While the Mets were tumbling their way under .500, the Yankees were in the midst of winning 50 of their first 72 games. Since June 14, the Yankees are 10-21 in their past 31, including a 5-12 record at home.

Gleyber Torres homered and Alex Verdugo hit an RBI double on Tuesday, but the Yankees were 1-for-9 with runners in scoring position. Juan Soto went 0-for-4 before drawing a walk in the ninth, and Aaron Judge drew four walks for the fifth time in his career before striking out in the ninth against Jake Diekman.

“We’ve seen that some teams take that approach,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said after a game in which J.D. Davis hit cleanup behind Soto and Judge. “We’ll get the middle of our order settled a bit and it changes the equation a little bit. There’s going to be times when teams take that approach. We just got to get the middle of our order more settled and, hopefully, that will come back to bite teams when they do it and force them to go after Aaron.”

The Yankees will try to avoid the season series sweep by sending a fully stretched out Gerrit Cole (3-1, 4.60 ERA) to the mound for his seventh start of the season. He missed the first 75 games while dealing with right elbow inflammation.

Since allowing six runs on seven hits — including four homers — in four innings during a 9-7 loss to the Mets on June 25, Cole is 3-0 with a 2.95 ERA in his past four outings. On Friday, he allowed one run on six hits in six innings in a 6-1 home win over the Tampa Bay Rays.

Cole is 2-3 with a 6.64 ERA in eight career starts against the Mets. As a Yankee, he is 0-1 with a 7.43 ERA in three starts against the Mets

Left-hander Sean Manaea (6-4, 3.73) starts for the Mets and attempts to rebound from one of his worst starts this season. Manaea was 3-0 with a 2.37 ERA in six starts before allowing five runs on eight hits in five innings in Friday’s 6-4 defeat at Miami where he took his first loss since June 8.

Manaea is 2-3 with a 3.89 ERA in seven career starts against the Yankees and has allowed two earned runs in 17 1/3 innings in three previous appearances at Yankee Stadium. He last faced the Yankees on June 26 when he allowed two hits in five innings of a 12-2 win.

–Field Level Media