Mets-Yankees rivalry hasn’t been the same since Juan Soto changed sides — look at what’s happened to Subway Series lineups

Juan Soto was in the Mets’ lineup on Thursday after a brief injury scare, albeit as the designated hitter, so it’s not all bad news in Queens ahead of the season’s first Subway Series, with cross-town hostilities renewing at Citi Field on Friday.

The Mets even swept a series for the first time this season, beating the Tigers 9-4 as call-up A.J. Ewing homered. So there is at least some small degree of positivity on their side of the city going into the measuring-stick series against the Yankees.

A not-so-bad week for the Mets aside, the big-picture story headed into a weekend in which baseball will take center stage in the city — depending on how long the Knicks need to wait to learn their conference finals opponent — is the total divergence of the two local franchises since 2024, when for one glorious week, a Subway Series World Series looked to be in the cards.

Moreover, that divergence happened after, and in some ways as a product of, the Mets scoring their biggest ever off-field victory over the Yankees, wooing Soto over the metaphorical traffic-jammed bridge of your choosing with a record 15-year, $765 million deal that represented owner Steven Cohen’s coup de grace.