WASHINGTON _ The New York Mets came to our nation's capital hoping that Thursday's debacle in Flushing _ their sixth loss in a row, injuries to Noah Syndergaard and Yoenis Cespedes _ was rock bottom.
Travis d'Arnaud had to be hoping the same thing. The catcher was hitless in his last 16 at-bats and was dropped to eighth in the batting order.
Two home runs off Max Scherzer and five RBIs later, d'Arnaud's slump was over. So was the Mets' losing streak as they topped the Nationals, 7-5, before 34,562 at Nationals Park.
Was it easy? No. All it took was Josh Edgin bailing out Jeurys Familia and getting Bryce Harper to ground into a game-ending 1-2-3 double play after the Nationals loaded the bases to open the ninth.
The last-place Mets had lost 10 of 11 and the first-place Nationals had won nine of 10 going in, including a three-game sweep at Citi Field last weekend.
The Mets were looking for spark, any spark, and they got it from d'Arnaud and his batterymate, Jacob deGrom, who struck out 12 in a gutty seven-inning effort.
DeGrom (1-1) gave up three runs _ all in the second inning _ and six hits with one walk. He let an early 2-0 lead slip away, but turned it on after d'Arnaud's second home run gave the Mets a 5-3 lead in the fourth.
The Mets had a 7-3 lead with two outs in the eighth, but Addison Reed gave up a two-run home run to Ryan Zimmerman and singles to Daniel Murphy and Anthony Rendon before striking out Jayson Werth to end the inning.
In the ninth, the Nationals loaded the bases with three straight singles off Familia, who struck out Trea Turner for the first out.
Mets manager Terry Collins removed his closer, bringing in the lefthander Edgin to face Harper, who bounced back to the mound for the game-ending double play. It was Edgin's second career save; his other one came in 2013.
The Mets were without Cespedes, who was placed on the 10-day disabled list before the game after straining his left hamstring on Thursday. The Mets are hopeful that Syndergaard, who was scratched from Thursday's start with right biceps soreness, will start the final game of this series on Sunday.
The Mets took a 2-0 lead in the second when d'Arnaud crushed a 1-and-0 pitch 455 feet to leftfield for his third home run of the season.
The era of good feeling did not last long, however. Zimmerman led off the bottom of the second with an opposite-field home run to right.
The one that hurt, though, came four batters later. With Anthony Rendon on first and two outs, deGrom threw a wild pitch to send the runner to second. That made the count 1-and-1 on No. 8 batter Matt Wieters, but the Mets did not elect to intentionally walk Wieters to get to Scherzer.
On the very next pitch, Wieters smacked a two-run home run to center to give Washington a 3-2 lead.
But the d'Arnaud Show was not over. In the fourth, Jose Reyes hit a one-out single and T.J. Rivera _ starting at first base with Jay Bruce returning to rightfield _ walked to bring d'Arnaud to the plate.
This time, d'Arnaud slugged a 420-foot three-run homer to left to give the Mets a 5-3 lead. The first two-homer game of d'Arnaud's career gave him 15 RBIs on the season, which equaled his total from last year.
DeGrom struck out eight in the next three innings to protect the lead into the seventh. And then he came back out for more.
DeGrom started the seventh at 101 pitches. When you're as down as the Mets have been, it's no time to worry about pitch counts, apparently.
DeGrom sailed through an 11-pitch 1-2-3 inning, with the final out coming on a diving catch in center by Curtis Granderson on a liner by pinch hitter Wilmer Difo.
The Mets expanded their lead to 7-3 in the eighth, with the RBIs coming on a pinch-hit single by Kevin Plawecki and bases-loaded walk to Michael Conforto.
