WASHINGTON — It wasn’t quite the four-day weekend the New York Mets envisioned entering the nation’s capitol on a seven-game winning streak, but the National League East leaders bounced back from two walk-off losses to secure a series split with a blowout win on Monday.
Brandon Nimmo hit two home runs – a three-run shot in the sixth and grand slam in the seventh – and followed with a two-run double in the eighth, tying a Mets record with nine RBIs in the 19-5 defeat of Washington at Nationals Park.
Prior to Monday, the only other Mets player with nine RBIs in a single game was Carlos Delgado, accomplished at Yankee Stadium in 2008. Nimmo’s previous career high was five RBIs and he shattered that mark Monday with his seventh career multi-homer game and second grand slam since his debut in 2016.
‘These days don’t come around that often and you sit back and enjoy it,’ said Nimmo who entered Monday batting .192.
‘Part of you wants to just scream and throw a tantrum (when you struggle), but there’s another part of you that understands that this is just the way baseball works.’
Nimmo nearly had another RBI opportunity in the ninth against infielder Amed Rosario, who had taken the mound, but Mark Vientos hit a three-run homer with Nimmo on deck to clear the bases.
‘I was thinking ‘oh man it would be really cool to get double-digit RBIs in a day’ when I was coming up before Swaggy hit the homer,’ Nimmo admitted after the game. ‘I was like ‘oh man this would be sweet if i could get a couple more out of it.”
Monday’s offensive explosion ended things on a high note, but it was something of a frustrating series split in Washington for the Mets, who still have MLB’s best record at 20-9. New York blew a ninth-inning lead on Friday and a six-run advantage on Sunday in walk-off losses – and was limited to two runs in Saturday’s win.
‘We were very close to taking three, if not trying to sweep the series,’ Nimmo said after Monday’s finale. ‘You try to flush (the losses) and come back today. The guys did an amazing job and that’s what we’re going to have to do this whole season.’
While Nimmo poured it on in the late innings, the team’s first three runs were accounted for by two regulars who just made their 2025 debuts on Friday. Francisco Alvarez opened the scoring with an RBI double in the top of the second, followed by a sacrifice fly from Jeff McNeil, the former batting champion and two-time All-Star. Making his fourth career start in center field, McNeil added a solo home run in the fifth and triple in the seventh.
“It makes our lineup a lot deeper when you got Alvarez hitting seventh and a hitter like Jeff eighth,’ Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said. ‘That says a lot about where your team is at offensively.’
In another oddity on Monday, Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor became just the eighth player in MLB history to be hit by a pitch twice the same inning, getting plunked to lead off the seventh and again later in the frame by Nationals reliever Cole Henry.
Mets starter Griffin Canning got the win by tossing five scoreless innings but had to regularly work his way out of trouble, allowing the Nationals to get a runner into scoring position in each of the first four frames.
The Nationals were held without a run until the eighth but batted around in the frame and scored six times against Mets reliever José Ureña, who was making his team debut, including home runs from James Wood and Nathaniel Lowe.
The Mets return to Citi Field, where they have a 12-1 record, for a three-game set against the Arizona Diamondbacks beginning on Tuesday, while the Nationals head to Philadelphia to face the NL East rival Phillies.
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