Mets blow 7-1 lead as Nationals score five in seventh, walk off in ninth
The Mets' Juan Soto runs toward home to score on a sacrifice fly by Brandon Nimmo during the first inning of a game against the Washington Nationals on Sunday in Washington. Credit: AP/Nick Wass
WASHINGTON — As former Mets outfielder Mike Cameron once put it after losing a ball in the sun, “The sun’s been there for 500, 600 years.”
Cameron may have been a few billion years off, but the sentiment was true: You can’t fight the sun.
The giant, fiery, 4.6 billion-year-old orb got in Juan Soto’s eyes on a short fly ball to rightfield in the seventh inning of the Mets-Nationals game on Sunday at Nationals Park. The ball fell in front of Soto as Luis Garcia Jr. hustled into second with a double.
No biggie, right, given that the Mets were ahead by six runs at the time?
Except the Nationals went on to score five runs in the inning and two more in the bottom of the ninth to shock the Mets, 8-7. The winning run scored on Pete Alonso’s throwing error.
“Tough one there,” manager Carlos Mendoza said. “For us to be there 7-1 in the seventh and let that one go away, that’s a tough one.”
Washington won it against Ryne Stanek, closing instead of Edwin Diaz, who threw 22 pitches in saving Saturday’s 2-0 victory.
Alex Call led off the ninth with a double, moved to second on a groundout and, with the infield in, scored the tying run on a one-out single by CJ Abrams past a diving Alonso.
The worst was yet to come: Stanek walked James Wood before Garcia hit a grounder to Alonso, whose overhand throw was too high for Stanek covering at first. The ball sailed past the leaping Stanek as Abrams raced home to score the winning run.
It was the second time in three days that Stanek had blown a save and ended up the losing pitcher in place of Diaz.
“It’s just a blip on the radar over the course of a full season,” Stanek said. “We play 162 and we’ve scuffled for a couple and you forget about it and move on to the next day.”
Mendoza said Diaz “wasn’t available, obviously.” Mendoza is closely watching his workload early in the season.
“The guys that pitched were the guys that we had available,” Mendoza said, “and we just couldn’t finish the game.”
The Mets scored five runs in the first inning and were leading 7-1 in the seventh when Garcia’s leadoff sun ball started a five-run rally that ended with the Mets ahead by a run. The sun in a cloudless sky was an issue all game all over the field.
“Tough ball,” Soto said. “It just got in the sun, and every time I took a step forward, it was getting in and out of the sun. Just a very hard fly ball.”
The play was part of a productive but still frustrating day for Soto in the ballpark he called home when he led the Nationals to the 2019 World Series title. He went 2-for-3 with a double, two walks and two runs. But after swinging through a fastball for a strikeout in the seventh, Soto slammed down his bat.
Even after the sun ball, the Mets were ahead, but they didn’t add on in the ninth despite having runners on second and third with nobody out. Against a drawn-in infield, both Mark Vientos and Starling Marte grounded to short. The inning ended when Brandon Nimmo grounded to second.
The Mets’ big first inning came against lefthander Mitchell Parker, who came in with a 1.39 ERA. Parker threw 43 pitches in the frame, allowing three hits and four walks.
The runs came on sacrifice flies by Vientos and Nimmo, a two-run single by Luis Torrens and an RBI single by Luisangel Acuna.
Soto led off the second with a hustle double and scored three batters later on Marte’s grounder to make it 6-0.
Dylan Crews homered off Tylor Megill in the second for Washington’s first run. Torrens had an RBI double in the fifth to make it 7-1. Parker, who recovered to go five innings and allowed all seven Mets runs, saw his ERA climb to 2.65.
Megill allowed three runs in 6 1⁄3 innings, striking out nine. He left in the seventh after allowing a one-out RBI single by Josh Bell that made it 7-2. Jose Butto struck out Crews but then gave up three consecutive hits, the last a three-run home run by backup catcher Riley Adams, who was hitting .071 (1-for-14) after striking out in his first two at-bats.
It suddenly was 7-6.
Notes & quotes: What the Mets originally said on Saturday was left biceps tightness for reliever A.J. Minter is more of a lat injury, Mendoza said. Minter, who was placed on the 15-day injured list, had an MRI on Sunday, the results of which the Mets did not immediately release. Righthander Jose Urena was recalled from Triple-A Syracuse.
Anthony Rieber covers baseball, as well as the NFL, NBA and NHL. He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since July 5, 2004.
