Mets’ Luis Severino pokes fun at former team, says Yankees ‘only have two good hitters’

The 2024 Subway Series between the Mets and Yankees will wrap next next week. The Mets swept two games from the Yankees at Citi Field last month, and the Yankees will look to return the favor in the Bronx.

On Friday, the Mets announced veteran lefties Jose Quintana and Sean Manaea will start the two Subway Series games, meaning Luis Severino will not face his former team. He did not face the Yankees last month either. Naturally, his old Yankees pals are giving him a hard time about it, but Severino had a pretty good comeback.

“We have a group chat, the guys who’ve been through the Yankees and stayed with the Yankees. They talk s— about me, like, ‘You’re afraid of us,’” Severino said Friday. “I said, ‘I’m not afraid of you guys. Right now you only have two good hitters.’ I can walk those two guys. It’s always friendly competition with players I’ve already played with. It’s going to be fun, and hopefully in the future I can face them.”

Hey, Severino’s not wrong! The Yankees are heavily reliant on Aaron Judge and Juan Soto. Since Giancarlo Stanton got hurt on June 22, Judge and Soto are hitting .291/.431/.575 with 11 home runs. The rest of the Yankees are hitting .214/.283/.354 with 16 home runs. That’s in 19 games too. Not, like, five. The Yankees are a two-man army.

I suppose the good news for the Yankees is Stanton, who hit 18 homers with a .795 OPS before his hamstring injury, went through full agility drills Friday and could rejoin the Yankees in the coming days. And, of course, even with the non-Judge/Soto portion of the offense being so underwhelming, the Yankees entered the second half averaging 4.98 runs per game, the most in baseball.

As for Severino, he’s had a strong bounceback season, throwing 109 2/3 innings with a 3.78 ERA. He’s stayed healthy too. Injuries were a big problem from 2019-23, and last season Severino threw 89 1/3 innings with a 6.65 ERA for the Yankees. The two sides parted ways in the offseason and Severino is doing quite well with his fresh start in Queens.

Severino’s Mets have the best record in baseball since June 1 (25-13) and are 49-46 on the season. They sit in the third NL wild-card spot. The Yankees are 58-40 and one game back in the AL East. They have the fourth best record in baseball.