Jeff McNeil’s walk-off spoils Chris Sale’s stellar outing as Mets beat Braves, 3-2 in 10 innings

NEW YORK — Chris Sale might be back, but so is Jeff McNeil.

The Mets opened a key series against their NL East foes Thursday night at Citi Field with wild-card positioning on the line with a 3-2, 10-inning win. With two on and two out in the bottom of the 10th, the 2022 NL batting champ hit a deep fly ball off Pierce Johnson into the right-field corner and Ramon Laureano overran it. Automatic runner Jose Iglesias scored to give the Mets the walk-off win.

It was the ninth RBI in seven games for McNeil, who struggled throughout the first half of the season and it capped off a wild game.

What started out as a pitching duel between two veteran aces who were once among the game’s best turned into a duel between one of those aces and one of the Mets’ best relievers.

Right-hander Luis Severino battled left-hander Sale until Jose Butto took over for him in the sixth inning with the game tied.

Francisco Lindor extended his hitting streak to 10 games with a two-run homer off Sale in the third inning. His third homer in two games and 22nd on the season, the long ball put the Mets up 2-1 on the Braves (54-47).

Severino was solid until the sixth, when his command wavered. With the Mets up 2-1 and Severino facing the heart of one of the best orders in baseball, he walked Marcell Ozuna and gave up back-to-back singles to Matt Olson and former Mets catcher Travis d’Arnaud to give up the tying run.

The Mets (54-48) then went to the bullpen for Butto, who has quickly become one of the more reliable relievers in the group despite having only been moved to the bullpen earlier this month. Butto set the next three down to get out of the inning and strand Olson and d’Arnaud.

Butto worked three perfect innings, striking out four.

Severino allowed two earned runs on seven hits, walking two and striking out six over five innings.

Sale turned in yet another vintage performance in a season full of them, limiting the Mets to only Lindor’s two-run homer over 7 1/3 innings. He made quick work of the Mets, giving them little to work with.

McNeil singled with two out in the second but was thrown out trying to take an extra base. Sale hit Pete Alonso with a pitch in the fourth, but otherwise faced no real traffic on the basepaths. He struck out the side in the seventh, in an inning that was seemingly over in the blink of an eye.

The lanky lefty went heavy on a slider and for good reason — it was nasty. He got 14 swings and misses and struck out the side in the seventh using only 12 pitches. Sale went back out for the eighth inning and induced a grounder to McNeil before Atlanta pulled him at 94 pitches.

Mets fans begrudgingly tipped their caps as he walked off the field and right-hander Joe Jimenez jogged in from the bullpen.

Edwin Diaz and Francisco Alvarez worked together to eliminate any threat by the Braves in the top of the ninth. Diaz walked Eddie Rosario and Atlanta used speedy pinch-runner Whit Merrifield to get into scoring position. Merrifield swiped second, but Diaz then struck out Nacho Alvarez Jr. and Francisco Alvarez threw down in time to get Merrifield.

The call was challenged, but upheld. Diaz then struck out Laureano to keep the game tied.

Laureano, the automatic runner in the 10th, got caught in a rundown on a squeeze play. The Braves took offense to how hard Francisco Alvarez applied the tag to the outfielder, running into him like a linebacker. Once things calmed down, right-hander Phil Maton retired Jerred Kelenic to end the inning.

The Mets are only 0.5 games behind the Braves in the wild-card standings with the win and have a chance to overtake the 2021 World Series champs with three more games at home this weekend.