Mickey Togs

With over a month left in the season, Aaron Judge hit the 50-homer mark for the second time in his career.

With his one-out blast in the top of the eighth against the Angels at Angel Stadium, Judge became just the 10th player in MLB history to have multiple seasons with at least 50 home runs.

He also reached the milestone in 2017, when Judge hit 52 as a rookie.

Judge’s next challenge — in addition to battling the Angels Shohei Ohtani for AL MVP — will be making a run at Roger Maris’ American League and franchise record of 61 homers, set 61 years ago in 1961.

Judge’s home run was greeted with loud cheers from the announced sellout crowd on Monday night, which was filled with Yankee fans — who booed loudly when Judge was walked twice intentionally earlier in the game.

Buck Showalter loves to say that as long as the Mets’ offense has an out remaining, they have a chance to win. 

That resilience was on display once again Friday night at Citi Field, as Showalter’s first-place team pulled out its 81st win with yet another late rally, this time for a 7-6 victory over the Rockies — on Pete Alonso’s RBI single in the ninth inning. 

“Everybody has that ability for comebacks, but whether you can tap into it is another thing,” the manager said. “When momentum changes, we talk about it all the time, and they talk about it, stay in the moments.”  

“Whatever happened, happened, and you can’t do anything about it. Let’s go ahead and move to the next challenge, and they’ve done it all year. The job description requires it here.”

Jacob deGrom walked off the mound shaking his head after completing Thursday’s sixth inning. It was the only one all night in which the perfectionist didn’t post a zero on the scoreboard.

The team co-ace’s fifth start since returning from the injured list was just as encouraging as the first four for the first-place Mets, who began a stretch of 20 of 23 games played against sub-.500 teams with a 3-1 win over the Rockies at Citi Field.

“Jake was great for us,” Pete Alonso said after the Mets’ got back on track after two Subway Series losses earlier to the Yankees. “Jake was awesome for us, and it’s great to have him back.”

Working with two extra days of rest since his previous outing last Thursday, deGrom retired the first 12 batters he faced and departed with a 3-1 lead after six innings. The two-time Cy Young winner allowed one run on three hits with one walk and nine strikeouts over an 87-pitch effort, a handful shy of his season-high of 95 last week against the Braves.

Alonso belted a two-run homer in support of deGrom, who improved to 3-1 with a 2.15 ERA over five starts since returning from the injured list this month.

Leon Edwards dropped Kamaru Usman with a kick to the head and neck in the final minute of the fifth round to win the welterweight championship at UFC 278 on Saturday night.

Usman appeared to be seconds away from a 16th consecutive victory, which would have tied an all-time UFC record, before Edwards came up with the stunning finish just in time. He delivered the knockout blow with 56 seconds left in the bout.

“That crosshead kick landed perfectly,” Edwards said.

Edwards (20-3) is undefeated dating back to his previous bout with Usman in 2015. The British fighter rose to No. 2 in the welterweight division while accumulating nine wins in that stretch ahead of the title bout.

Usman (20-2) lived up to his reputation as the No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter in the world for much of the bout. The Nigerian weathered a late first-round takedown and turned the tables with a late second-round takedown. Usman controlled position throughout the third round, earning two more takedowns, and led 39-37 on the judges’ scorecards after four rounds. He appeared on his way to a win by unanimous decision before Edwards rallied in the final round.

“The octagon belongs to nobody,” Edwards said. “No man is meant to hold the belt for that long. I said all week I felt like this was my moment. This is how it was meant to play out.”

If this is what the regular season Subway Series was like, then imagine the Yankees and Mets meeting in October for baseball’s biggest prize.

“You’d like to think ahead a little bit, because of the pace they’re on and where we’re at, too,” Aaron Judge said, “but we got to get there first.”

Judge hit a 453-foot drive halfway up the bleachers for his major league-leading 48th home run and added an RBI single during a seventh-inning rally, boosting the New York Yankees past the Mets on Tuesday night for their second straight 4-2 win and a two-game sweep.

The Yankees turned a pair of sparkling 6-4-3 double plays, Andrew Benintendicame through with another big hit and rookie right fielder Oswaldo Cabrera made three key contributions. The go-ahead rally was boosted by a fluky popup that dropped for a single, and fans stood for nearly 20 minutes in the ninth inning anticipating the final out.

Francisco Lindor lofted Wandy Peralta’s changeup for a routine fly to center, stranding the bases loaded and ending as scintillating a regular-season game as you’ll see.

“We hope that we do the things it takes to get a chance to hopefully come back to this place,” Mets manager Buck Showalter said.

Zack Wheeler and Aaron Nola have been no sweat for the Mets this  season, but when the Phillies start somebody named Bailey Falter, look out.

A rookie, Falter accomplished something Saturday in Game 2 of a doubleheader that neither Wheeler nor Nola have been able to do against the Mets this year: He beat them.

The Mets managed just two hits over six innings against the left-hander and three total in a 4-1 loss to the Phillies at Citizens Bank Park.

Earlier in the day, the Mets jumped on Wheeler and rolled to an 8-2 victory in the first game.

The Mets are 13-5 against the Phillies in 2022 and will finish the season series on Sunday. Most notably, the Mets are 9-0 in games the Phillies’ top guns, Wheeler and Nola, have started against them.

But the Mets managed just two singles against Falter, in his ninth major league start.

“His ball was getting on us,” Francisco Lindor said. “It seemed like his fastball had a little bit more on it than we expected. It had more ride on it. We didn’t make the adjustment quick enough.”

Pete Alonso has been at his best when it matters the most, raising his play when the moment calls for it.

After the Mets dropped three of four to the Braves this week, the division matchup against the rising Phillies that began Friday night certainly mattered, and so the first baseman responded.

Alonso passed the 100 RBI mark and crushed his 30th home run of the season to jump-start the Mets in a 7-2 victory at Citizens Bank Park.

The Mets bounced back nicely after those four games in Atlanta, in which they lost a series to an NL East opponent for the first time this year. With a 77-43 record, they remained 3 games up on the Braves, who beat the Astros on Friday.

“He wants to be everything for us every night,” manager Buck Showalter said of Alonso, who went 2-for-5 and finished the night tied with Aaron Judge for the major league lead with 102 RBIs. “He takes pride in his defense, in his driving in runs.” 

On another lifeless night for their offense, the Yankees were blanked by the Blue Jays in a 4-0 loss at the Stadium.

The Yankees (73-47) lost for the 14th time in their last 18 games and fell to 12-24 since July 8. Their lead atop the AL East that day was a season-high 15 ½ games, but after Friday night, the Blue Jays (64-54) have cut it to eight games — the smallest it has been since June 13.

Over their last 10 games, the Yankees have scored just 19 runs — eight of which came in their wild comeback win Wednesday. That game seems little more than a blip on the radar for a team that has otherwise struggled mightily at the plate.

Not even Aaron Judge could put the Yankees on his back. The AL MVP favorite went 0-for-2 with a walk and is now 2-for-23 over his last seven games in a rare off week, though he is far from the only Yankee in that group.

LeMahieu is on a 4-for-28 skid. Anthony Rizzo is 6-for-38. Josh Donaldson is 6-for-37. Andrew Benintendi is 7-for-35. Gleyber Torres is 6-for-40. Isiah Kiner-Falefa is 5-for-33.

The National Football League announced its own new subscription service, called NFL+  

The subscription service, which will cost $4.99 monthly or $39.99 annually, will offer out-of-market preseason games, live local and primetime regular season games and postseason games, as well as NFL Network and NFL Films content on-demand on streamable platforms,

“Today marks an important day in the history of the National Football League with the launch of NFL+,” said NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell in a news release. 

 “The passionate and dedicated football fans are the lifeblood of the NFL, and being able to reach and interact with them across multiple platforms is incredibly important to us. We look forward to continuing to grow NFL+ and deepening our relationship with fans across all ages and demographics.”

The NFL said its new NFL+ service is the latest of its direct-to-consumer offerings, which already includes its NFL Game Pass subscription service.

When a string of injuries to various body parts began during the middle of last season, Jacob deGrom was put on the shelf as the best pitcher in baseball. Now that he has returned, deGrom is making it clear that title still belongs to him.

DeGrom threw six scoreless innings, in which he faced 20 hitters and retired 18, 10 by strikeout, in the Mets’ 1-0 win over the Phillies in front of a sellout crowd of 43,857, the biggest of the season and the ninth largest regular-season crowd in Citi Field history.

Phillies batters swung at 44 of deGrom’s 76 pitches. They connected for two singles — one in the first inning by Rhys Hoskins and one in the sixth by Bryson Stott — and missed 19 times.

The Mets scored in the first inning thanks to Starling Marte’s legs. Marte singled, stole second and took third base when the throw escaped into center field. Pete Alonso came through again with a single off Aaron Nola for his league-leading 97th RBI.

“The value of one run in the big leagues is tremendous — especially  when Jake’s on the mound,” said Alonso, whose average is up to .281. “You know you have a pretty good shot to win the ballgame.”