Cespedes’ walk-off HR lifts Mets over Marlins

NEW YORK — As five teams continue twisting themselves into knots in the National League Wild Card race, the Mets did all they could to keep pace on Monday at Citi Field.

Yoenis Cespedes hit a walk-off homer in the 10th inning, leading the Mets to a 2-1 win over the Marlins that also evened the two teams in the Wild Card standings. Both clubs still trail the Giants, Cardinals and Pirates.

Neither Miami’s Jose Fernandez nor New York’s Rafael Montero was efficient at the start, combining to walk 10 batters in 11 innings. Montero in particular worked around trouble throughout the early evening, issuing six free passes in his spot start. But neither starter cracked for a run, turning the game into a matchup of bullpens. The Mets and Marlins traded runs in the eighth inning, with Xavier Scruggs doubling home Ichiro Suzuki and Jose Reyes scoring on a wild pitch. With two hits in the game, Suzuki moved past Boggs for sole possession of 27th place on Major League Baseball’s all-time list, with 3,011.

MOMENTS THAT MATTEREDCespedes goes deep: The game seemed headed to an 11th inning when Cespedes strolled to the plate with two outs in the bottom of the 10th. He put a charge into a Nick Wittgren pitch, launching it over the left-field fence as a Citi Field crowd of 32,188 erupted.

Jose’s six shutout: It wasn’t vintage Fernandez, racking up huge strikeout numbers with his wipeout slider. Instead, Fernandez had to work and grind his way through six shutout innings on 113 pitches. The bottom line for the All-Star was he didn’t allow a run and finished with six strikeouts while walking four, one intentionally. Fernandez got out of a sixth-inning jam where he gave up a leadoff single to Alejandro …

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