Delgado dominated the day game at Yankee Stadium. He set a Mets record with nine RBIs and hit a grand slam for one of his two homers in a 15-6 rout that lasted 3 hours, 54 minutes.
After both teams got police escorts for their rush-hour bus trips to Shea Stadium, Bobby Abreu went 4-for-4 with a walk and three RBIs as the Yankees enjoyed a blowout of their own. Ponson outpitched Pedro Martinez with six shutout innings, and the Bronx Bombers broke loose in Queens for their first win in four Subway Series games this season.
Robinson Cano homered and drove in three runs for the Yankees, who have won 10 of 14 overall. Derek Jeter extended his season-high hitting streak to 15 games with an RBI double off the center-field fence.
With a history of off-the-field trouble, Ponson pitched well for Texas this season but was cut for being a disruption to the team.
Missing three injured starters, the Yankees signed him to a minor league deal last week and he made one four-inning start at Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre before drawing a big assignment against the crosstown rival Mets.
Ponson (5-1) certainly delivered after the Mets apparently used up all their big hits in the opener. The beefy right-hander, who pitched briefly for the Yankees in 2006, pumped his fist after wriggling out of a bases-loaded, none-out jam in the second. He loaded the bases in the third, too, then escaped again when Ramon Castro grounded sharply into an inning-ending double play.
The Yankees soon got to Martinez (2-2), who allowed six runs and six hits in 5 2-3 innings while dropping his second consecutive start.
Ponson pitched around five hits and four walks, one intentional. Kyle Farnsworth, Jose Veras and Kei Igawa completed the eight-hitter, the Yankees' seventh shutout this season and second in three games.
The Mets were blanked for the third time, and second in four games.
After the Yankees left a season-worst 14 runners on base in the opener, the Mets stranded eight in the first three innings of the nightcap.
This was the third time the teams played a two-stadium doubleheader. The Yankees swept the other two (July 2000 and June 2003).
Luis Castillo scored a career-best five runs for the Mets in the day game, a makeup of a May 16 rainout.
Delgado got a huge ovation before his first plate appearance at Shea, but finished 0-for-2 with two walks.
Slumping all season, Delgado hit a two-run double off Edwar Ramirez in the fifth inning of the opener and his 12th career slam in the sixth, a long drive against Ross Ohlendorf that landed in one of the last rows of bleachers in right-center. Delgado added a three-run homer in the eighth off LaTroy Hawkins, a shot into a corridor beyond the right-field wall.
"I got lucky," said Delgado, who turned 36 on Wednesday. "Every time I came up it seems like they had a lot of guys on base so I got some good pitches to hit and I was able to drive them."
Delgado's nine RBIs were one better than Dave Kingman's total for the Mets in an 11-0 victory at the Los Angeles Dodgers on June 4, 1976. Delgado's 44th multihomer game gave him 444 career home runs, breaking a tie with Kingman for 34th place.
"When he gets hot, he gets kind of stupid hot where he can put a team on his shoulders and carry them for a week or two at a time," said David Wright, who tied a career high with four hits.
