Maybe it was the opposing pitching, notably former Met Trevor Williams and three Washington relievers, not looking sharp.
Maybe it was the Brandon Nimmo gnome that debuted in the dugout and looked over the club.
Maybe — probably — it was the simple fact that this lineup is much better than it had shown in the past couple of days and was bound to break out in a big way.
Regardless of the rationale, the recently offensively challenged Mets out-hit their mistakes — and there were plenty — in a back-and-forth, 9-8 win over the Nationals in front of 20,726 at Citi Field on Thursday night.
“That’s as good a win as we’ve had all year,” manager Buck Showalter said after the Mets (15-11) snapped a four-game losing streak, the longest of his tenure with the club and inspired some hope ahead of a four-game showdown with the Braves.
The Mets, who had scored one total run in the previous two losses against Washington (9-15), scored three runs apiece in the fourth and sixth innings, which was not enough because their defense and pitching allowed Washington back into the game.
Tommy Hunter and Brooks Raley combined to hit three batters in the eighth inning, when the Nationals scored five runs thanks to the series of pitching misses, Francisco Lindor booting a grounder and CJ Abrams crushing a grand slam. Suddenly, a 7-3 Mets lead was an 8-7 deficit.
“You don’t see three hit-by-pitches coming,” Showalter understated, but the Mets responded quickly.
On a night on which the Mets finished with a season-high 16 hits and everyone in the starting lineup reached base safely, the top of the lineup went to work.
Down by one in the bottom of the eighth, Starling Marte knocked a single, stole second and moved to third on Lindor’s long fly out. Pete Alonso drilled a double into the right-center-field gap to tie the game before Jeff McNeil one-upped Alonso with a triple off the right-field wall that scored the go-ahead run.
“It shows a lot about this team to kind of get knocked down there, give up the lead, and be able to come back,” said McNeil, who seems to be the one slump-proof member of the lineup, hitting .421 in his past 10 games.
David Robertson secured his fifth save of the season in a drama-free ninth, picking up the rest of the bullpen — which was without Adam Ottavino, who was put on the paternity list earlier in the day.
Just like the top of the lineup picked up Hunter and Raley in the bottom of the eighth.
“We had a conversation today about the next man stepping up and everyone having each other’s backs,” said Brett Baty, who came through with his first career three-hit game. “It really showed tonight.”
For seven innings, it had seemed as if the Mets could cruise because they just kept hitting.
Baty reached base four times and blasted his first home run of the season. The third baseman’s fourth-inning dinger, against a slow curveball from Williams, put the Mets up 2-1, a lead they would hold until the eighth-inning meltdown.
Baty led the way, but he had company. Lindor, his left-side-of-the-infield partner, swatted a two-run double down the first-base line in the fourth inning that turned a 2-1 Mets edge into a 4-1 lead.
After the Nationals responded by scoring two against Joey Lucchesi and Hunter in the top of the sixth to close the gap to one run, Lindor came back in the bottom of the inning and blasted an RBI double off the right-field wall to drive in Nimmo.
Following RBI singles from Alonso (who went 2-for-5 and snapped an 0-for-19 skid) and Daniel Vogelbach, the Mets swelled the lead on a night the ball kept finding holes.
Maybe they could credit a good-luck charm. Shortly before the game started, Luis Guillorme placed a large gnome — wearing Nimmo’s uniform and smile with a pointy cap — at the end of the dugout, and maybe gnomes portend well even outside of gardens.
Or maybe the Mets, who harkened back to last year’s pass-the-baton offense by stacking 16 hits and only one home run, were going to hit Nationals pitching at some point.
“The players just refused to lose,” Showalter said.
