QUEENS, NY — Jeff McNeil doubled on the first pitch he saw from Nationals reliever Cole Henry in the 10th inning to score ghost runner Luisangel Acuna and deliver the Mets their fourth straight win with a 5-4 comeback triumph over Washington on Tuesday night at Citi Field.
It was the marquee moment of a two-RBI night for McNeil, who is batting .341 with four home runs and nine RBI in his last 11 games.
A notorious first-ball hitter, the lefty bat jumped on a 94 mph fastball that shaded toward the bottom of the zone and pulled it to right.
“I was just looking for anything I could hit to the right side,” McNeil said. “I wasn’t trying to do too much. I felt like they were trying to go hard and away, so I was kind of cheating for something out there and trying to hook the ball to the right side. It got down.”
The Mets (43-24) overturned a two-run deficit in the bottom of the eighth to tie the game at four apiece behind a two-out rally against Nationals reliever Jose Ferrer and closer Kyle Finnegan.
After Starling Marte drew an eight-pitch walk, Juan Soto made it a one-run game when he lined a 107.3 mph rocket to right field off Ferrer, which bounced in front of a diving Robert Hassell and snuck behind him to score Marte from first.
“That’s a 12-year veteran taking an at-bat right there,” Soto said of Marte’s walk before delving into his at-bat. “I just tried to hone in on the mistakes. I know [Ferrer] has nasty stuff. I’m just trying to stay locked in my zone… How things are going, I was definitely hoping [that liner] would get down. It did, and I’m real glad… I got it done.”
Soto went 2-for-4 with a home run to go with that double and two RBI on the night.
Pete Alonso followed it with a line-drive single off the left-field wall off Finnegan, but was thrown out trying to stretch it into a double, but not before the run scored.
Mets reliever Reed Garrett stranded the Nationals’ ghost runner on third in the 10th, getting James Wood to ground out, Nathaniel Lowe to strike out, and Andres Chaparro to fly out.
A pair of Nationals acquisitions from the 2022 trade, which sent Juan Soto from Washington to the San Diego Padres in pitcher MacKenzie Gore and shortstop CJ Abrams, nearly sank the Mets.
Abrams went 3-for-4 with two doubles, a home run, and two RBI, while Gore allowed just two runs on five hits in six innings of work with six strikeouts and no walks.
All four of the Nationals’ runs came against Mets starter Griffin Canning, who continues to struggle as of late. While also yielding seven hits with four strikeouts and two walks in 5.1 innings of work, the righty has a 4.84 ERA in his last five starts after carrying a 2.36 ERA through his first eight appearances.
The Nationals posted three in the first two innings, starting with Lowe launching his ninth home run of the season deep to right field. Abrams doubled home Alex Call with two outs in the second. Jose Tena attempted to score from first on Abrams’ liner down the right-field line, but was thrown out easily at the plate by Soto.
McNeil pulled one back for the Mets in the second when he dinked a two-out bloop single into right, which scored Brandon Nimmo, who singled and stole second. It improved his career mark against Gore to an impressive 8-for-11.
Soto brought the Mets within one in the third when he took a 2-2 Gore slider the opposite way over the left-field wall for his 12th home run of the season. Nodding after he fouled two previous fastballs off, Soto made no mistake on the offspeed offering up in the zone.
“I’m waiting for mistakes,” Soto said. “He made a mistake and I put the ball in play.”
He then appeared to say something to the Nationals’ starter as he rounded the bases.
“We were just saying hi to each other,” Soto joked.
“[Gore] got him the first at-bat, and then Soto took him deep,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said. “Maybe they stared at each other. The next time, he got him out on one pitch. I thought they both handled it the way they should’ve handled it.”
Abrams put Washington back up two when he went the other way and poked his ninth home run of the season just over the left-field fence in the fifth.
“[Alonso] kinda came by me and said they were going to pick me up, and that sort of says it all right there,” Canning said of his tough night. “It doesn’t feel good to go out and put us in a hole right away. Just to know that they had my back and were going to grind it out against a really good pitcher on the other side, it’s really nice to see.”
