AMAZIN’ TURNAROUND
Mets win 5th straight, climb back to .500 with wild victory over Nationals
The game really should have been in the bag by the time Juan Soto led off the ninth inning for the Nationals. The Mets had been in control all game, but were ahead by just two thanks to a familiar surplus of stranded base runners and untimely strikeouts, leaving closer Edwin Diaz to shut the door.
Soto hit a home run on the first pitch of the inning, halving the Mets’ lead. So it was going to be one of those.
After striking out Josh Bell, Diaz walked Ryan Zimmerman on four pitches to put the tying run on base. Riley Adams slapped a line drive to right field that fell just past a diving Nimmo. Andrew Stevenson, pinch-running for Zimmerman, was off to a running start, and collided with Chance Sisco at the plate as a rocket relay from Baez made it in time, but had Sisco in the line of fire. The ball came loose, Zimmerman scored, and Sisco was forced to leave the game. The winning run stood on third with one out.
Diaz struck out the next two batters following a lengthy injury delay, but the damage had been done. On to extra innings.
Mercifully, the Mets did not complete the implosion. Maybe it’s even a metaphor for this attempted September comeback. Pete Alonso led off with a single to score Francisco Lindor, on second to start the 10th. Javy Baez flied out, but Alonso tagged and advanced, inciting an intentional walk to Michael Conforto. A Kevin Pillar double scored both, and would eventually score on a Jonathan Villar single. Four runs was plenty, and Jeruys Familia pitched an uneventful bottom of the 10th to give the Mets (67-67) the 6-2 win.
Although they’re back at .500 — and just four games out of first after the Braves lost last night — the Mets need to make up ground quickly, and converting wins against the pitiful Nationals and Marlins is the top priority over the current stretch of 13 games in a row against the two (other) punching bags of the NL East.
Manager Luis Rojas focused on the positives, such as the way Diaz rebounded from giving up those two runs to find two strikeouts to close the inning. “That was a really good sign,” Rojas said after the game, “just watching him have a good heartbeat and trusting that he was going to get out of the situation and we were going to win the game. It’s experience, you can’t simulate that … and then the stuff matches up with the experience.”
Before chaos took over in the final innings, the Mets were in control of the game thanks to the Nats finding ways to tie their shoelaces together.
Rich Hill escaped the first inning safe and sound thanks to some of that dysfunction, when Lane Thomas, on first after a single, turned the corner at second on a fly out to right, but forgot to tag as he hustled back to first. Javy Baez scored in the next frame on a Conforto single up the middle, and Brandon Nimmo scored in the third on an Alonso triple to right that dodged Juan Soto’s glove by a few inches. And in the bottom of the third, Hill caught Luis Garcia in a slapstick rundown.
Just like that, the Mets were up 2-0 after three innings, firmly in control thanks mainly due to a few bad breaks for the Nats in the field and a few worse decisions on the basepaths.
Thomas pulled a run back for the Nats in the top of the fifth by running down what would have been an RBI fly by Francisco Lindor.
The Nats gave Hill a scare in the bottom of the fifth. A double by Garcia put runners on second and third, but Hill popped out pinch hitter Keibert Ruiz to end the inning. He danced through the raindrops in the sixth as well, to finish with six scoreless innings on just 85 pitches, allowing three hits on two walks to go with four strikeouts. It was as good as Hill has looked as a Met, and a welcome relief for a staff that will not be getting Jacob deGrom back any time soon.
The Nats put a stop to a ninth-inning attempted rally by New York, when Villar (4-for-6 on the night) turned a one-out single into an out on the basepaths. Villar was caught trying to steal second, and the call was upheld despite a challenge from manager Luis Rojas. Nimmo walked, and Lindor (0-for-5) grounded out to send the game to the bottom of the ninth and the usual Metsian dramatics.