Jeff McNeil walks off Nationals as Mets take series opener at Citi Field

Abbey Mastracco, New York Daily News on Jun 10, 2025

Published in Baseball

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NEW YORK — In the battle of Juan Soto versus the players he was traded for, it was a fairly even battle.

C.J. Abrams went 3 for 4 with two doubles, a home run, two RBIs and two runs scored for the Washington Nationals, while Soto hit his fourth home run in 10 games against his former team and helped his current team tie the game in the bottom of the eighth.

Ultimately, Soto and his current team won the first round with a 5-4 walk-off win Tuesday night at Citi Field. Jeff McNeil drove in the winning run, ripping the first pitch he saw from Cole Henry down the left-field line to score Luisangel Acuña, the automatic runner.

Down 4-2 in the eighth, Jose A. Ferrer walked Starling Marte to put one on with one out. Soto lined a double to right that bounced off the glove of Robert Hassell III, allowing Marte to come home easily. Pete Alonso then drove one to the left-field corner to score Soto, but was thrown out trying to stretch a single into a double.

Edwin Diaz then retired the Nats in order in the top of the ninth to give the Mets a shot at a walk-off.

They did exactly that in the bottom of the 10th inning.

Griffin Canning was hit right from the start, but recovered later in his outing to pitch into the sixth inning. The right-hander allowed four earned runs on seven hits, walked two and struck out four over 5 1/3 innings, with Jose Butto stranding a runner after getting two outs in the sixth to keep him out of trouble.

Abrams led off the game with a double, and with one out, Nathaniel Lowe hit an 0-1 slider into the right-field seats for a home run. The Nationals took an early 2-0 lead.

McNeil extended his on-base streak to 13 games with an RBI single in the bottom of the first to cut the lead in half, but the Nats upped the lead to 3-1 in the second with another RBI double by Abrams. With two on and two out, Abrams doubled down the right-field line, scoring Alex Call. But Jose Tena was waved around third just as Soto recovered the ball and threw a strike to Luis Torrens at home. Torrens got the tag down to end the inning and prevent any further damage.

Soto hit a two-out solo shot off right-hander MacKenzie Gore in the third to bring the Mets to within one run of tying, but Abrams made it 4-2 with his in the fifth.

Gore continued his strong season by limiting the Mets to two earned runs over seven innings, striking out six. Abrams and Gore were both part of the prospect package that went to Washington in exchange for Soto and Josh Bell when the Nationals traded the right fielder to the San Diego Padres in 2022. Hassell II was also in that group, as was James Wood, who played left field and hit second Tuesday night.

That trade jump-started the rebuild that was started in 2021 when the Nats sent Max Scherzer and Trea Turner to the Los Angeles Dodgers. Washington did extremely well in those trades, with eight players they acquired between the 2021 and 2022 trade deadline currently on their roster.

The Nationals are still in the midst of a rebuild, but they’re going to make life tough for the NL East teams with the way they’re developing talent.

And Soto will continue to make life difficult for the NL East as well, tormenting opposing pitchers for the next 15 years.