Aaron Judge getting owned by Jake Diekman completely wasted fiery Luke Weaver inning

The New York Yankees' bullpen, given a little bit of luck, did everything they possibly could to keep Tuesday night's Subway Series opener close. Predictably, the Yankees' offense decided that a one-run deficit was close enough for them.

Based on the way these final innings unfolded following Jeff McNeil's two-run homer to grab a 3-1 lead for the Mets, whichever team lost the game was bound to be upset by the result. Each club had countless chances to either expand their lead or catch up fully. The Yankees put the leadoff runner on in the seventh inning, down a run, when Mets reliever Dedniel Nuñez dropped the feed from Pete Alonso after a diving snag. Every Met fan feared a Luis Castillo scenario, but these Yankees don't do that anymore; they didn't score.

Ben Rice mashed a ball to Death Valley that would've been a home run in 17 big-league parks, but this wasn't one of them. Harrison Bader found it relatively easily.

The best scoring chance belonged to the Mets, however, who loaded the bases with one out against Luke Weaver. The Yankees' setup man somehow found enough juice to strike out Luis Torrens, but fell behind 3-0 to the very next batter, Tyrone Taylor.

Fastball, changeup, changeup was the pitch-perfect sequence that sent him to the dugout squealing. The Yankees simply couldn't lose after that.

Yankees lose as Aaron Judge, offense lets down Luke Weaver again

But, again, these Yankees are different. "Different" in the way that they no longer win close games. "Different" in the way that they can't seem to build upon internal momentum shifts. "Different" in that they can't seem to conjure magic, late inning or otherwise.

In the ninth, against Jake Diekman, who is not the Mets closer and sports a 5.28 ERA and has subtracted 0.6 bWAR this season, Juan Soto (taking a semi-decoy at-bat with a painful hand) walked on four pitches.

That allowed Aaron Judge to, potentially, see his first pitches to hit of the entire game. He got one right away, taking a fastball directly down the middle. Three pitches later, Diekman did this, the painting equivalent of when Rafael Devers plays like a Gold Glove third baseman against only the Yankees.

Perfect pitch -- but, of course, the damage pitch was the first one. Judge stared at it like he was glaring at Jose Siri.

Rookie Ben Rice grounded out to end it, and he might have stood a better chance if he hadn't been banned from facing left-handers for two weeks, only to be shown one in a lonely at-bat with the game on the line.

The Yankees made myriad mistakes in this game, starting with the lineup. So did the Mets, which concluded with Harrison Bader running into the second out of the top of the ninth at third base. This loss was bound to sting whichever team was left holding the bag. Predictably, since it was a Yankees home game (they're now 6-14 in their past 20 games in the Bronx), they figured out a way to go limp.

This time, it actually fell on Judge's substantial shoulders.