The Washington Nationals staged a miracle rally Tuesday night and came away with a huge comeback win over the New York Mets, who were beginning to feel right at home at Nationals Park.
Kurt Suzuki hit a three-run, walkoff homer in the last of the ninth as the Nationals came back for an 11-10 victory. It was the largest comeback win in the ninth inning in history for the Nationals, who moved to Washington in 2005.
The Nationals scored seven runs in the last of the ninth, with two coming on a bases-loaded double by pinch-hitter Ryan Zimmerman.
Washington had lost 11 of the previous 17 games to the Mets this year, including a 7-3 drubbing on Monday.
The comeback helped overshadow a discouraging start by Max Scherzer, who gave up four runs in his third outing since coming off the injured list.
Joe Panik hit just his fourth homer of the year, a two-run shot in the fourth, off Scherzer before a crowd of just 20,759 fans.
Washington (78-61) is 6½ games back of first-place Atlanta in the National League East.
The Mets (70-68) saw their playoff chances take a big hit against Washington, whose bullpen struggled before the huge comeback.
Scherzer was making his third start since coming off the injured list. He went six innings and allowed four runs on five hits with seven strikeouts while throwing 90 pitches.
The previous three homers he allowed came to batters with just a combined 19 homers before play began Wednesday: Garrett Hampson (3) of Colorado, Adam Frazier (8) of Pittsburgh and Chance Cisco (8) of Baltimore.
Former Washington catcher Wilson Ramos had an RBI double and Brandon Nimmo drove in a run with a sacrifice fly as the Mets tied the game at 2 in the fourth.
Later in the inning, Panik hit a two-run homer to right off Scherzer to make it 4-1.
The Mets had four hits on first pitches from Scherzer in the fourth inning. According to SNYtv, opponents had just 12 such hits off the ace in his previous 22 starts in 2019.
Jacob deGrom, the Mets starter, gave up a two-run homer to Juan Soto that trimmed the margin to 5-4 in the eighth. Seth Lugo took over for deGrom, who gave up four runs in seven innings. Washington left fielder Soto was hit near the right elbow in the sixth inning by deGrom but stayed in the game.
But Brandon Nimmo of the Mets led off the ninth with a homer off Roenis Elias to make it 6-4. New York scored five more in the ninth, with Pete Alonso hitting a homer off Daniel Hudson.
The Nationals rallied, with Edwin Diaz of the Mets giving up the winning homer to Suzuki.
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