The blueprint has been redesigned.
The Mets opened their season by silencing opposing offenses, their pitching compensating for bats that were cold in the colder months.
Recently, their offense has begun to remind of the résumés and the contracts that are stuffed into the order.
On Tuesday, they neither outpitched nor overpowered the Nationals. Instead, they simply refused to lose.
Behind a walk-off hit from a fully made-over Jeff McNeil — plus contributions from an excellent bullpen, Juan Soto and Pete Alonso — the Mets overcame a two-run ditch in the eighth inning, sent the game to a 10th and stole a 5-4 series-opening victory against the Nationals in front of 38,472 at Citi Field.
“We’re never out of the game,” manager Carlos Mendoza said after the Mets (43-24) won a fourth straight and 13th in their past 15.
They won because in the bottom of the 10th, McNeil only needed to see one pitch from Cole Henry.
He lined — and did not slice or loop — the winning hit into right field to drive in ghost runner Luisangel Acuña and jump-start a celebration around McNeil at second base.
Credited with a double, McNeil’s slugging percentage is up to a career-high .541.
The batting champion who hit .326 in 2022? He is gone.
After a downturn in 2023 and ’24, along with a dip in the first half of last season, McNeil changed his approach over last year’s second half to swing with more ferocity.
He might whiff a touch more, but he is connecting with the ball with authority.
“It’s pretty hard to hit for average in this league,” McNeil said after his third career walk-off. “Pitchers are so good and so tough that I feel like when you do get a good pitch to hit, you got to kind of do some damage on it.”
Every hitter adjusts, but few have the ability to range between such extremes as McNeil.
“We know the bat-to-ball skills are off the charts,” Mendoza said. “I feel like he gets in trouble at times when he’s just trying to put the ball in play.”
The Mets survived because they received 4 ²/₃ scoreless, one-hit innings from their bullpen, the last frame taken down by Reed Garrett.
Among the game’s best at stranding runners, the righty stranded one more in the top of the 10th by inducing a ground out from James Wood that moved ghost-runner CJ Abrams to third and then struck out Nathaniel Lowe.
Former Yankees prospect Andrés Chaparro then flied out, and Garrett clapped walking off the field.
“The more we throw him in situations, he continues to gain the feel for it,” Mendoza said of Garrett, who was only pitching because the club’s late-game offense gave him a chance.
Silent for most of the night outside of an RBI, bloop single from McNeil in the second inning and a third-inning solo shot from Soto, the Mets awoke in the eighth.
Against lefty Jose Ferrer, Starling Marte worked a two-out walk that Mendoza hailed as the at-bat of the game.
“He did a really good job,” Soto said of Marte, a close friend. “Everybody wants to come through in that situation, but he stayed patient and gave myself and Pete a chance to come through.”
Both did. A red-hot Soto drilled a sinking liner to right that eluded a diving Robert Hassell III, who could not trap the ball, which bounced behind him.
He had to retrieve what became an RBI double.
After one enormous offseason addition drew them closer, another piece of their winter work tied the game: Alonso crushed a shot that bounced off the left field wall to drive in Soto, though Alonso was thrown out at second.
“Our lineup is deep, it’s versatile, lefty, righty, power, contact,” Mendoza said. “There’s a lot of different ways we can beat teams.”
Forgotten by the end were the four runs in 5 ¹/₃ innings allowed by Griffin Canning, who put the Mets in a two-run hole 10 pitches into the game by serving up a homer to Lowe.
Canning was not sharp but pitched into the sixth, solid enough to keep the Mets afloat, which helped Alonso’s prediction come true.
“I think we’re just playing for each other,” Canning said. “After the first or second inning, Pete kind of came by and said they were going to pick me up.”