NEW YORK _ The ball had yet to land on the grass in right field. But right away on Monday night, the Mets knew. At first base, Wilmer Flores raised his arm. At second base, Michael Conforto followed suit.
At the plate, Neil Walker smiled, his game-winning single giving the Mets a 4-3 victory against the Giants. For Walker, it was the third walk-off hit of his career, and his first as a Met.
The rally began with a leadoff walk by Conforto. With two outs, Flores extended the inning, bouncing a single off the left leg of Giants reliever Hunter Strickland that trickled to short for an infield hit.
Walker finished it off, giving the Mets a much-needed victory during what has been a turbulent stretch in New York.
Jeurys Familia (1-0) pitched a 1-2-3 ninth inning and got the win.
Last October, the two teams tangled in a classic National League wild-card game. But on Monday, that matchup felt a long ways away.
The Giants (11-22) have endured a brutal beginning. They arrived at Citi Field with a .344 winning percentage, the worst in the NL and the second-worst in all of baseball. They were fresh off being the victims of a three-game sweep at the hands of the Reds, getting outscored 31-5.
The Giants' run differential of minus-63 was the worst in all of the big leagues at the start of the day. But even though the Giants have been statistically bad, the Mets' recent problems seemed to defy measurement, with Matt Harvey in the midst of another controversy.
But despite a 7-0 loss to the Marlins on Sunday, the Mets insisted that there was no carryover effect. On Monday, it seemed as if they had refocused.
Jacob deGrom allowed three runs in six innings, though he battled with his pitch count. He finished with 11 strikeouts, giving him 41 in his last five games.
But despite the gaudy strikeout numbers this season, command has been an issue for deGrom. When he's made mistakes in the zone, he's been punished for them. That cycle played out in the first inning.
After a walk to Brandon Belt, deGrom fired a fastball that lingered over the heart of the plate. All it required from Hunter Pence was an aggressive swing and a trot around the bases. The two-run homer to right-center, Pence's third of the season, staked the Giants to a 2-0 lead.
The Mets cut into that advantage in the bottom of the inning. With runners on first and second, Walker laced a ground-rule double to right-center to score Conforto. But the tying run remained stranded on third because the ball bounced over the fence, a break for the Giants.
The Mets wouldn't tie it until the fifth, when deGrom triggered a rally with a leadoff single. He scored on T.J. Rivera's double to the corner in left, knotting the score at 2.
The Giants needed just one swing to reclaim the lead in the sixth. It came from Buster Posey, on another deGrom fastball that found the heart of the plate. The ball cleared the fence in left. But the Giants' lead was short-lived.
With two outs in the sixth, Curtis Granderson came off the bench to deliver a double that one-hopped the fence in left field, allowing the Mets to tie the game for the second time.
