Back To The Start: Yankees 4, Mets 2

Three games, three runs, nine total hits. The Yankees entered Sunday night's game with the 23rd best ERA in baseball, but they shut down the Mets' Quadruple-A lineup in each game of this series. The story for the Mets continues to be the absence of three of their four best hitters, with none even on the verge of returning to action. I forget which member of ESPN's baseball broadcasting Axis of Evil mentioned this during the telecast, but if you took away three of the four best hitters from any team in the league you'd be left with something resembling a pathetic, dried-up husk. Let's say David Wright is the Mets's best hitter (it might actually be Carlos Beltran, but let's just make things easy). Here's who each of the National League's best teams -- by record -- would have to forfeit if they suffered injuries similar to the Mets. Since this is quick-and-dirty, I just took the top-four players by 2009 OPS.

• Phillies: Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, Jayson Werth, (Raul Ibanez, owner of the Phillies' best OPS, is actually hurt).
• Dodgers: Matt Kemp, Andre Ethier, Orlando Hudson
• Brewers: Ryan Braun, Rickie Weeks, Mike Cameron
• Cardinals: Skip Schumaker, Colby Rasmus, Brendan Ryan (bleah, their lineup is terrible)
• Giants: Aaron Rowand, Fred Lewis, Travis Ishikawa (almost as bad as St. Louis)
• Marlins: Cody Ross, Dan Uggla, Jorge Cantu

For kicks, here are the Yankees and Red Sox:

• Yankees: Johnny Damon, Nick Swisher, Jorge Posada
• Red Sox: Jason Bay, J.D. Drew, Jason Varitek

All of these teams would be knee-deep in guano if they lost what the Mets have, and we haven't even gotten into the pitching staff.

What's that? The game? Omir Santos is terrible and Francisco Rodriguez issued a bases-loaded walk -- his third free pass of the inning -- to Mariano Rivera, giving the Yankees a ninth-inning insurance run and their legendary closer his first career RBI. Need more? Traditional recap link after the jump. The Mets are back to .500, 2.5 games back of the Phillies, and they head to Milwaukee for a three-game series with the Brewers.

Swag Contest

Swag contest results can be found here and the next game's swag form already available. You can read more about the swag contest here.

SB Nation Coverage

* Traditional Recap
* Boxscore
* Amazin' Avenue Gamethread
* Pinstripe Alley Gamethread

Win Probability Added

Big winners: Luis Castillo, +10.9% WPA, Sean Green, +4.6% WPA
Big losers: Omir Santos, -20.4% WPA, Fernando Martinez, -10.6% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Cano GIDP to end sixth, +15.8% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: Santos strikeout to end eighth, -14.4% WPA
Total pitcher WPA: +1.9% WPA
Total batter WPA: -51.9% WPA
GWRBI!: Jorge Posada

Game Thread Roll Call

Nice job by Prince; his effort in the game thread embiggens us all.