Mets rally with four runs in seventh before Dodgers win in 10 innings

After a rousing four-run seventh inning tied Friday night’s game against the Dodgers, the stage was set for the Mets to move back into first place in the NL East.

Man, was the crowd — at 38,395, the largest gathering at Citi Field this season — ready to erupt if the Mets had gone ahead in the seventh or eighth or won it in the ninth.

But they didn’t, and the Dodgers’ Will Smith led off the 10th with a two-run homer against Jeurys Familia (a sentence made possible by the ghost runner).

The Mets had their own ghost runner in the bottom of the 10th but could push across only one run against Kenley Jansen as Los Angeles escaped with a 6-5 win.

After the Mets scored in the 10th on Jonathan Villar’s one-out grounder to third, with a runner on second, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts had James McCann intentionally walked, putting the potential winning run on base.

Pinch hitter Tomas Nido, the Mets’ final position player, hit a first-pitch fly ball to leftfield to end it.

"It was tough," Jeff McNeil said. "Everyone wants to win, but there’s a lot of positives in that game. Being down 4-0 and clawing back and fighting back. We were right there. Had the winning run at the plate the last inning."

"I’m proud of them," manager Luis Rojas said. "This is who we’ve been the entire season, and to show it against this team . . . always proud of the guys."

The Mets are a half-game behind Philadelphia and Atlanta, and all three teams are tied in the loss column.

Rojas sat Michael Conforto, Dom Smith and McNeil against lefthander Julio Urias, and without those regulars, the Mets fell behind 4-0. "I wasn’t really told anything," McNeil said. "You look at the lineup and our names weren’t in there. It is what it is."

All three entered the game as pinch hitters and contributed to the four-run seventh.

Smith (fifth inning) and McNeil (sixth) struck out in their pinch-hit at-bats and remained in the game on defense.

Conforto, who came into the game with five hits in his last 10 at-bats, got his chance off the bench in the seventh with two outs and nobody on. He doubled into the rightfield corner against righthander Brusdar Graterol and scored on Smith’s single off lefthander Justin Bruihl.

Brandon Nimmo walked to bring Pete Alonso to the plate as the potential tying run on Polar Bear Pete Alonso Super Hero Bobblehead night.

With the three-batter rule, Bruihl had to stay in, and he threw a wild pitch on his first offering. Roberts then ordered an intentional walk to Alonso to load the bases for McNeil, putting the tying run on base to get the platoon advantage.

It didn’t work. McNeil delivered a bloop two-run single to center to make it 4-3.

In came righthander Blake Treinen to face J.D. Davis.

Treinen threw a fastball off Smith’s glove and Alonso scored the tying run on the passed ball.

Urias allowed two singles and walked two in five shutout innings. The Dodgers pecked and pecked at the Mets during the first six innings, scoring four runs, three of them on sacrifice flies. Mets starter Tylor Megill allowed three runs in five innings.

The circumstances of the Dodgers’ run in the sixth did not make Mets fans happy. Chris Taylor was on second when Drew Smith struck out Cody Bellinger for the first out.

James McCann’s throw back to Smith after the strikeout was high and glanced off the pitcher’s glove, and Taylor alertly moved to third on what was scored an error on McCann. Former Met Billy McKinney hit a sacrifice fly on the next pitch.

There was a delay in the ninth because of something that was going on in the leftfield stands, possibly a laser pointer being shined at the Dodgers’ Max Muncy — on TV, his face was green — during an at-bat. "Might have been the best crowd of the season," Rojas said. "But for that to happen, you don’t want to see that. We don’t want that happening in a baseball game."

Said Roberts, "They think they’re helping the home team. It’s just bad, dirty pool." 

By Anthony Rieber

anthony.rieber@newsday.comAnthonyRieber

Anthony Rieber covers baseball, as well as the NFL, NBA and NHL. He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since July 5, 2004.