NEW YORK _ It started in the sixth, but for three dizzy innings, Citi Field had been transported to another time, a better time.
Jose Reyes' 34-year-old legs acted about five years younger, propelling him around the bases the way they used to, as if he had some unseen motor or maybe a secret pair of wings. Mike Piazza appeared on the scoreboard, urging the crowd to get loud. And that same crowd _ a packed house, thanks to a coveted Noah Syndergaard bobblehead _ jumped and screamed and chanted in a way that's been increasingly rare in these last few months.
Then came the blast.
It was only two years ago that Wilmer Flores hit a walk-off home run that immediately made its way into Mets lore. On Saturday, he provided an encore. With two outs in the ninth, hit a line drive to the leftfield stands, completing a five-run comeback and giving the Mets a 6-5 win over the A's.
The Mets scored four runs in the sixth and tied it at 5 in the eighth, sparked by Travis d'Arnaud's two-out double. It was then that Lucas Duda came in to pinch hit and smacked an RBI single up the middle, sending the crowd into a tizzy that was downright nostalgic.
The A's scored all five of their runs by the third inning, and the Mets barely formed a semblance of a response against starter Sean Manaea. Until that sixth, that is.
Flores led off with a double and Jay Bruce hammered a ball to straightaway center, a two-run home run and his team-high 25th. Then, one out later, Reyes, who had already tripled in the second, added another, giving him his first two-triple game since 2012. He came home on a single by d'Arnaud. After Curtis Granderson hit into a fielder's choice, Michael Conforto pounced, lacing a double to left. Granderson scored, the ball skittered away and Conforto tried for third. He was originally called out, but in a break that seemed more common to the Mets of old, he was called safe on review. The Mets drew to within 5-4 that inning, before Asdrubal Cabrera struck out.
Before all that, the Mets looked every bit like the team that's struggled all season.
It took 36 pitches for Zack Wheeler to get out of the first inning, 32 to get the second out and just two to put the Mets in a hole. Matt Joyce led off the game with a home run to center, and Wheeler walked Marcus Semien, who came home on Khris Davis' one-out single. Two more scored after that, on Bruce Maxwell's RBI double and Matt Chapman's sacrifice fly. Much like in his start against the Cardinals, Wheeler struggled with fastball placement and an inconsistent curve and it didn't get much better the longer he stayed in.
He walked the first batter he faced in the second _ Manaea, who came into the game with two major league at bats _ but did manage to control the damage until the third, when Matt Chapman crushed yet another mistake pitch. This one, with two outs, was a 91-mph fastball, smack dab in the middle of the plate. It ended up a couple rows into the second deck in left and put Oakland up 5-0.
Wheeler allowed five runs on seven hits over five innings, with four walks and six strikeouts. He threw 100 pitches, 67 for strikes.
