Suzuki's walk-off homer caps stunning comeback (updated)

Davey Martinez has been imploring his Nationals to "stay in the fight" all summer long, no matter how many games back they've been in the standings, no matter how many runs they've trailed by in any particular game, no matter how big a hole their bullpen puts them in late.

"Think positive, that's all I can tell you," the second-year manager said. "If you let this game go like this (motioning up and down) it's not going to be good. Just stay right here (motioning a straight line) and we'll be fine."

It can sound cliched, but you can't deny there's something to it. These Nationals are not perfect, not at all. But they sure do stay in the fight. And more often than not, they end up winning the fight.

Just never before like this.

Down six runs in the bottom of the ninth? After a ghastly series of mistakes in the top of the inning left them stunned and dazed? Yep, the Nationals somehow stormed all the way back from that to beat the Mets, scoring seven runs in the span of eight batters, the final three delivered with one gargantuan blow via Kurt Suzuki's bat, the walk-off homer that somehow lifted this team to an 11-10 victory that qualifies as the most improbable in club history.

"Boom," Martinez said, inciting a cheer from a group of fans watching his postgame news conference from the adjacent Presidents Club at Nationals Park. "What do you want me to say? Boom."

Boom, indeed. Never before had this franchise come back from more than four runs down in the ninth inning to win. Not as the Nationals. Not as the Expos. Tonight, they came back from six runs down to stun the Mets.

"Let's be honest, I don't think we thought it was going to happen, either," said Ryan Zimmerman, who played a starring role in this comeback with a pinch-hit two-run double. "A lot of us have been around baseball for a long time. Once it starts going, the pressure shifts, obviously, squarely on their shoulders. Stuff like that is not supposed to happen. It's a crazy sport. Crazy things happen."

It wasn't supposed to happen because of what did happen in the top of the ninth: The Mets scored five runs to turn a tight game into a seemingly comfortable 10-4 lead. The inning included two homers off Nationals relievers, an error on a dropped popup and Trea Turner forgetting how many outs there were.

The Nationals returned to the dugout staring at a six-run deficit and a thinning crowd, but the man who runs the ship was his usual, chipper self.

"It's funny because I was sitting there with (Asdrúbal Cabrera) by the batting thing, and he's looking at me like: 'What's wrong with you?' I said: 'Hey man, stay positive. In this game, the minute you get negative, that's when things start to fall off the cliff.'

"And we started coming back, and he looks at me laughing. He goes up there, gets a base hit. And at the end of the game he goes: 'You are unbelievable.'"

Slowly but surely, the Nationals clawed their way back, perhaps aided by Mets manager Mickey Callaway's decision to pull top reliever Seth Lugo after a 10-pitch eighth, believing the lead was large enough to save him for another day. It wasn't.

Victor Robles led off with a single, then scored on Turner's one-out double. Subsequent singles by Cabrera and Anthony Rendon got another run on the board and forced Callaway to summon lefty Luis Avilán to face Juan Soto, who immediately delivered another single to load the bases.

"I think hitting's contagious, obviously," Suzuki said. "And when you see these guys putting up quality at-bats when you're down by six runs, it makes you want to go up there and keep the line moving."

As Zimmerman stepped to the plate to pinch-hit for Matt Adams, Callaway emerged from the dugout again, this time signaling for erratic closer Edwin Díaz.

As what remained of the crowd implored the longest tenured player in team history to come through, Zimmerman ripped a double to right-center, scoring two runs. He now stood on second base representing the tying run, still with only one out.

"Try not to do too much," said Zimmerman, now 2-for-4 with a double and a homer since returning from the injured list. "Coming off the bench facing a guy throwing 100 (mph), ... didn't do a good job on the first pitch of not trying to do too much. Took a step out, deep breath. Honestly, just tried to hit the ball hard up the middle. Don't try to do too much off that guy. A good heater and slider. Just tried to get it to the next guy."

Which he did. Suzuki now stepped to the plate and dug in against Díaz. A single through the hole would've been enough to tie the game. He wasn't thinking in those terms.

"I think part of me said: 'We don't get paid for overtime in the big leagues. And with a day game tomorrow!" Suzuki said. "Part of me was like: See if you can end it. And part of me was: Just hit it hard. Honestly, though, he's throwing 100 mph with a 93 mph slider. You can't swing out of your butt. You've got to stay within yourself and try to play pepper and try to put the barrel on it. Because you know if you touch it, it's gonna go."

Yeah, that's fair to say. After taking some unsuccessful mighty hacks, Suzuki worked the count full. He fouled off a 100 mph fastball at the letters to stay in the fight, then got another 100 mph heater at the belt and put forth one more mighty swing.

The ball was maybe one-quarter of its way on a 400-foot path into the left field bleachers when Suzuki dropped his bat and pointed at the dugout. On the mound, Díaz yelled something and immediately started walking back to his dugout.

"With the at-bats everybody was putting on in that inning, I didn't want to be the guy to kill the rally," Suzuki said. "I wanted to come through just like everybody else."

Back in the video room in the home clubhouse, Max Scherzer was contemplating his own performance. He knew something was going on out on the field, but he wasn't about to insert himself into it. Superstition and all, you know.

"I wasn't watching, and things were happening," Scherzer said. "Don't all of a sudden jump on the bandwagon. If you weren't watching before, why start watching? So I just let that unfold."

But surely Scherzer had seen the highlight later on, right?

"I haven't seen it," he insisted. "I don't need to. I don't need to."

Scherzer versus Jacob deGrom was supposed to be the story of the evening. But after each Cy Young Award winner and respective staff ace surrendered four runs before departing, the game turned for the Mets via the pair of solo homers clubbed off Roenis Elías and then the four tack-on runs made possible in the ninth when Turner lost track of how many outs there were.

Elías, the third reliever acquired by general manager Mike Rizzo at the July 31 trade deadline who strained his hamstring running the bases in his debut two nights later, had unusual reverse splits for the Mariners, enjoying much better results against right-handed hitters than lefties.

But the Nationals have hoped all along he could revert to the more traditional form he displayed prior to this season and have intended to give him opportunities to face lefties down the stretch. That plan went horribly wrong when Elías was tagged by Jeff McNeil in the eighth and Brandon Nimmo in the ninth, two of the three hits he surrendered to the four left-handed batters he faced tonight.

And those weren't even the ugliest moments of the final two innings of this game for the Nationals.

With Daniel Hudson poised to get out of the ninth with the deficit still two runs, Turner fielded a grounder by Tomas Nido and threw to first to retire the slow-footed catcher. Turner then took a couple steps toward the dugout, apparently believing the inning was over. It was not. There was only one out when Nido made contact, and there was a potential 6-4-3 double play staring Turner in the face.

The inning remained alive, and you know what happened next. McNeil sent a hard grounder past a diving Turner for a two-run single. Pete Alonso then hammered a pitch from Hudson to left-center for what felt like the dagger, two-run homer to cap a five-run rally.

"Shoot, I know that feeling," Suzuki said of Turner's gaffe. "It's a long season. You play this game long enough, it's going to happen to you. More than once. I've been in that spot, and you feel like you're on an island by yourself. It's horrible. Trea's one of the best players in the game. Things like that happen, and that's what teammates are for, to pick each other up and move forward. The worst thing you can do is sulk on it. You've just got to keep going. And he had a huge at-bat for us in kind of getting that rally going, too."

All this at the end of a night that began in very promising fashion.

The way he burst out of the gates, Scherzer looked very much like his old self, offering up the first real glimpse of his pre-injury form during the first three innings of this game. With a fastball that averaged 95 mph and topped out at 97 mph, the ace retired nine of the first 10 batters he faced, five via strikeout.

But then came the top of the fourth, and with it a dramatic change of hitting philosophy from the Mets, leading to a dramatic change in the score.

Four of New York's first five batters in the inning made contact on the first pitch they saw from Scherzer. All of them recorded base hits, with Wilson Ramos' double down the left field line bringing in one run and then (after Nimmo's sacrifice fly) Joe Panik's drive to right-center clearing the wall for a two-run homer.

Scherzer, when he wasn't cursing into his glove, looked dumbfounded, the assessment of his evening having been dramatically altered faster than he could figure out how it happened.

"It's no secret: You gotta come out and swing the bat," the ace said. "They can do it. And you gotta execute pitches no matter what. You just take that, learn from it and move on, and know what you need to sharpen up."

To his credit, Scherzer got right back on track and retired the side in the fifth and sixth. But with his pitch count at 90 and his team trailing 4-1, there was nothing left he could do to help the cause in this game.

In the bigger picture, this was a very encouraging night for Scherzer, who perhaps now can free himself of the shackles that have been placed on him the last two weeks.

"This start, I was able to start throwing pitches at 100 percent," he said. "Start letting it eat. Really started throwing some fastballs and really stepping on some fastballs, and stepping on some off-speed pitches as well. So for me, that was picking up the intensity on a per-pitch basis, was definitely higher tonight than it was in the past two starts. That's why I feel like this was definitely a good step forward."

The Nats jumped on deGrom in the bottom of the first, getting doubles from Cabrera and Soto to take a quick 1-0 lead. They would give themselves another golden chance in the third with two on, nobody out and two of the best hitters on the planet at the plate in Rendon and Soto.

Just as the heart of the Mets order did to beat Scherzer during their rally, these guys tried to ambush deGrom on the first pitch of back-to-back at-bats. Unlike the Mets, they were unsuccessful. Rendon grounded into a 5-4-3 double play. Soto lined out to center. Just like that, the rally was quashed, deGrom's pitch count having barely suffered for it.

The Nationals again threatened in the sixth, when with two on and one out, Suzuki drove a ball deep to center field. As Nimmo scampered back to try to make a play on it, Adams retreated to first base as though he was preparing to tag up. Which meant when Nimmo didn't make the play and the ball caromed off the wall, Adams could only advance to second and Suzuki had to hold up at first base with a 406-foot RBI single.

That proved costly when Gerardo Parra subsequently grounded to second base. If the runners were on second and third, the Nationals score another run and the inning continues. With the runners on first and second instead, Parra's grounder became an inning-ending double play.

The Nationals would finally get those desperately needed third and fourth runs back, thanks to Soto's big blast in the eighth that knocked deGrom from the game.

Who could have imagined how much would still take place before this game ended?

"A win is a win is a win is a win," Martinez said to yet another cheer from the crowd watching next door. "Look, the boys fought. What can you say about these guys, honestly? All year long, they've been down, down, down and they come right back."