WHY MICKEY IS STILL THE SKIPPER
Amed Rosario ran away from his teammates at first, all the way toward shortstop, playfully hopping up and down. Eventually, he accepted the friendly slaps on his helmet and feelgood Gatorade bath delivered by Pete Alonso. After the ugly sweep in Miami by the dreadful Marlins, the rumors of manager Mickey Callaway’s job being in jeopardy and the doom and gloom forecasts that have hovered over their heads, the Mets got to enjoy themselves for a change. Rosario’s inf ield single sent the Mets to the winner’s circle for the second straight day, this time with a walk-off, come-from-behind, 6-5 victory over the Nationals at Citi Field.
“It’s a walk-off, why not?”Alonso said, when asked why he brought the Gatorade bucket all the way out to second base. “It’s just a fun moment. You got to throw the Gatorade on someone to celebrate a walk-off, right? There’s no other way.”
“It was unbelievable,” Callaway added. “We went crazy.”
It capped a wild final three innings that saw the Mets rally from two runs down in the seventh and one run down in the eighth and survive another Jeurys Familia meltdown on the backs of their young players.
There was J.D. Davis, the one offseason acquisitions by general manager Brodie Van Wagenen that has worked out, blasting a pinch-hit, three-run, opposite-field homer to turn a 3-1 deficit into a 4-3 lead in the seventh. There was Tyler Bashlor keeping the Nationals lead at a run by retiring Victor Robles with two men in scoring position. There was Alonso setting a Mets rookie record for most home runs before the All-Star break (16) with a 417-foot moon shot that just stayed fair to pull his team even in the eighth. And then there was Rosario, busting it out of the box in the ninth to beat Trea Turner’s throw on a chopper.
“It was an incredible feeling, how emotional it was, just because it was my first walk-off and it’s our second game in a row we’ve won after a bad stretch,” Rosario said.
Turner stayed back on the chopper and clutched once, which Rosario took advantage of.
“It looked like he kicked it into a whole ’nother gear,” Callaway said. “He somehow willed it. … Rosie just outran the ball.”
Rosario then was chased around the diamond by his giddy teammates, able to exhale after the lost weekend in Miami. Unlike those losses to the Marlins, the Mets (22-25) fought back on multiple occasions Tuesday night. After thinking they had the game won after Davis’ three-run shot, Familia blew the lead in the span of five pitches in the top of the eighth. Juan Soto gave the Nationals the lead with a run-scoring double off Daniel Zamora. But Alonso responded for the Mets, blasting a 99-mph fastball from Tanner Rainey off the window of the restaurant at the top of the left-f ield foul pole, using body language to keep it from being a loud strike.
“I knew it was fair. I talked to it, said, ‘Stay fair, please,’ and it listened,” Alonso joked after moving into sixth place among Mets rookies for most home runs, with Darryl Strawberry owning the record of 26 in 1983.
“It’s huge. Like I said yesterday, we want to snowball good days together. Today was definitely a good day for us. Same plan tomorrow. We want to f ight until the last pitch.
“Today,” Alonso added, “was a hell of a win for everybody.”