NEW YORK — Jeff McNeil ranged far to his right to field Luis Garcia’s potential inning-ending double play ball on the backhand. As the Mets’ second baseman started to transfer the ball to his hand for a flip to second, he dropped it for an error.
Baseball wisdom says you’re not supposed to give good teams extra outs. The Washington Nationals are not a good team – in fact, they came into the game with the worst record in MLB.
But the Nationals turned that error into a four-run third inning. All the runs charged to Mets starter Carlos Carrasco in the third were unearned, but that is probably little consolation to Carrasco or Mets fans.
The Nationals went on to beat the Mets, 7-1, before 31,711 at Citi Field to take two of three in the series.
The Mets’ lead in the NL East fell to 1½ games over Atlanta pending the result of Atlanta’s rain-delayed home game against Miami.
The Mets, who won 11 of their first 14 meetings with Washington, lost the last two by identical 7-1 scores.
Carrasco (13-6, 3.91 ERA) lasted 2 2/3 innings in his first start since Aug. 15. He was on the injured list with a mild left oblique strain. Carrasco gave up five runs (one earned) and six hits with two walks and two strikeouts.
The Nationals took a 1-0 lead two batters into the game on a double by Thomas and RBI single by Garcia.
The Mets tied it in the second on a sacrifice fly by McNeil.
The game was tied at 1 when McNeil made his game-altering error. After dropping the ball, McNeil slapped it with his glove to Francisco Lindor at second, but Lane Thomas slid in safely.
Joey Meneses followed with a single to load the bases. Carrasco struck out Luke Voit for the second out, but Keibert Ruiz hit a two-run single to give the Nationals a 3-1 lead.
Carrasco walked Cesar Hernandez to re-load the bases before Ildemaro Vargas hit the dagger: a two-run single that fell in just under the glove of a diving Mark Canha in left.
Hernandez made it 7-1 in the fifth with a two-run homer into the top deck in right off Trevor Williams.
The Mets’ bats were quiet against Erick Fedde (6-9, 5.08 ERA), who came in with a 5.29 ERA this season and, in his career, was 0-4 with a 5.88 ERA in 15 games (10 starts) against the Mets.
But Fedde went six innings and allowed one run and four hits with one walk and two strikeouts.
The Mets showed signs of life in the seventh when McNeil and Canha led off with singles against reliever Hunter Harvey.
Eduardo Escobar then lofted a ball to left. Hernandez raced in and dropped it, picked it up and threw to third to force McNeil, who was in no man’s land near second base.
To make matters worse, the befuddled Canha went back to first (as incorrectly directed to do by McNeil) before cautiously heading toward second.
Vargas, the Washington third baseman, ran the ball to second, where he unnecessarily tagged McNeil (who was already out) and then tagged Canha for the unusual 7-5-5 double play.
