Jeff McNeil's wild single in the 10th inning saves cold Mets' bats in win over Atlanta
Jeff McNeil of the Mets celebrates his 10th-inning game-winning base hit against Atlanta at Citi Field on Thursday. Credit: Jim McIsaac
One night it was the defending AL Cy Young winner. The next, it was perhaps the frontrunner for this season’s NL Cy Young. Right now, it doesn’t seem to matter. Nothing is slowing the Mets’ roll.
One night after pounding the Yankees’ Gerrit Cole, the Mets outlasted Atlanta’s 13-game winner Chris Sale into the eighth inning and rallied in the 10th inning for a 3-2 win before 34,807 at Citi Field. The game-winner was a two-out long fly ball by Jeff McNeil toward the corner that Atlanta rightfielder Ramon Laureano over-ran and dropped in behind him.
The walk-off single — just the Mets’ third hit — scored free runner Jose Iglesias and extended the Mets winning streak to four games.
“It doesn’t matter who’s on the other side — we go out there and get it done,” said Francisco Lindor, who hit a two-run homer in the third inning off Sale, his fifth home run in his last four games. “We’re in a good wave right now. Ride it as long as you can.”
The Mets are now within a half game of second-place Atlanta in the NL East and could overtake them and move into the top NL wild card spot with a win Friday night in ace Kodai Senga’s season debut.
There were other major contributors late in the game who made the victory possible, most notably reliever Jose Butto and catcher Francisco Alvarez.
Butto was summoned into a 2-2 game to relieve starter Luis Severino with two on and none out in the sixth, retired the next three batters and then set down Atlanta in order in the seventh and eighth innings; he faced nine batters and got every one of them.
And Alvarez threw out runners on the bases in the ninth and 10th innings. He cut down Whit Merrified trying for third base for the second out of the ninth. And in the tenth — on what looked like an attempted squeeze bunt by Jared Kelenic but the Braves said was a miscommunication — Alvarez caught free runner Laureano between third and home for the second out.
“We won today because of him,” Severino said of Butto.
Added manager Carlos Mendoza, “The biggest thing for me is his ability to slow the game down, especially when there is traffic.”
Discussing Alvarez’ throw outs, Mendoza said “we knew he was going to . . . go for third [and] for Alvie to to come up throwing like that and put him away was a huge play in the game. And then the instincts with executing the rundown play [on Laureano] . . . He can impact games defensively.”
McNeil came to bat with runners on first and second and two out to face Pierce Johnson. His high drive toward the right field corner looked like it might either go foul or be caught after a long run by Laureano. But as it came down in fair territory, Laureano had to reach backward and couldn’t snag it.
“I knew he had to go a long way but Laureano’s a pretty good outfielder,” Mendoza said. “He can go get a baseball like anybody in the league. As soon as he hit it, I saw how far he was from the ball and thought maybe it has a chance.”
“I think I got a little help from the wind,” McNeil said. “It’s kind of tough in that corner and the ball kind of tends to blow back. I guess it blew back far enough.”
It was McNeil’s second career walk-off hit.
Laureano, who played his high school ball at Upper Room Christian Academy in Dix Hills, made no excuses about the final play..
“I overran it, but I should have caught that ball,” he said. “Let the team down today, for sure. Gotta move on. No time to think too much about it . . . it’s crazy. It’s things that don’t happen to me, and I take full responsibility for that.”
Sale pitched 7 1⁄3 innings and allowed two runs and two hits — including the Lindor home run — and a walk with nine strikeouts.
Luis Severino did a nice job hanging with Sale through five innings, though his pitch count climbed to 80 at that point. He held a 2-1 edge through five, but couldn’t get an out in the sixth when Atlanta tied the score. Butto put out the fire he’d started and Severino ended up charged with two runs, seven hits and two walks with six strikeouts.
Butto struck out four in his three innings. Edwin Diaz pitched a scoreless ninth with the help of Alvarez’ first throw out and winner Phil Maton pitched a scoreless 10th inning with the help of Alvarez’ second throw out.
With Neil Best
Roger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 to write about high schools, colleges and baseball following 20 years at the Daily News. A Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2011, he has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours.
