Mets Blow Early Lead, Lose to Nationals

This is one of those games that come back to haunt a team. You have a big lead against your rival with your ace on the mound and you blow it all. That’s what happened Monday night for the Mets against the Nationals.

The Mets scored in the first when Curtis Granderson and Yoenis Cespedes each singled and Neil Walker hit a sacrifice fly to make it 1-0.

Noah Syndergaard escaped a bases loaded, no outs situation in the bottom of the first to keep the Nats off the board.

Brandon Nimmo collected the first hit of his career, a single with one out in the second. Travis d’Arnaud and Curtis Granderson each singled and Nimmo had the first run of his career — 2-0 Mets.

Walker led off the fourth with a single. James Loney doubled to put runners on second and third. Wilmer Flores singled to score them both to make it 4-0. Nimmo then got his second hit, an infield single. d’Arnaud flied out, moving Flores to third. Syndergaard was called on to bunt on a safety squeeze, but Flores broke for home and was thrown out. Granderson grounded out to end the inning. The baserunning mistake by Flores may have cost the Mets a bigger inning, but it didn’t seem to matter because the Mets were in control of this one.

But then came the bottom of the third. No reason to detail it all, but suffice to say five singles, four stolen bases, a walk and a wild pitch resulted in five runs for the Nationals. And it would have been worse had Bryce Harper not made a baserunning mistake. Still, the Nationals had a 5-4 lead.

That was all for Syndergaard. He went just three innings, allowing five runs on seven hits. He struck out five and walked three. It was the first time this season he walked more than two batters in a game.

Sean Gilmartin came on for the fourth and allowed a run, but the Nationals broke the game open in the fifth against him. They scored four more runs to build a 10-4 lead.

The Mets would go on to lose a bad one, 11-4.