{"id":704479,"date":"2026-05-21T02:27:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T02:27:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/704479\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T02:27:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T02:27:14","slug":"cj-abrams-and-jacob-young-homer-as-nationals-return-to-500-with-8-4-defeat-of-mets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/704479\/","title":{"rendered":"CJ Abrams and Jacob Young homer as Nationals return to .500 with 8-4 defeat of Mets"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 CJ Abrams hit a three-run homer in the first inning, Jacob Young added a two-run shot in the eighth<\/a> and the Washington Nationals returned to .500 for the second time since the season\u2019s first week Wednesday night with an 8-4 victory over the New York Mets.<\/p>\n

Andrew Alvarez earned the Nationals\u2019 first four-inning save since they relocated from Montreal in 2005. Washington improved to 25-25 after getting to 23-23 on Saturday before consecutive losses.<\/p>\n

Juan Soto homered twice for the last-place Mets (21-28). It was the 29th multi-homer game for Soto, who came up with the Nationals and has 12 home runs and 26 RBIs in 35 career games against Washington.<\/p>\n

The $765 million slugger has five homers in his last seven games overall.<\/p>\n

Washington pounced quickly on left-hander Zach Thornton, who made his major league debut for New York. After Curtis Mead singled with one out and Andr\u00e9s Chaparro walked, Abrams ripped a cutter<\/a> just over the wall in right-center for his 10th home run.<\/p>\n

Keibert Ruiz added an RBI single to beat a drawn-in infield in the second against Thornton (0-1), who allowed four runs in 4 1\/3 innings while striking out three.<\/p>\n

Zack Littell (3-4) allowed Brett Baty\u2019s run-scoring single in the second, and Soto\u2019s solo shot in the third<\/a> brought the Mets to 4-2. Littell then retired seven of the next eight hitters to get through five innings. He allowed two runs and struck out three.<\/p>\n

The right-hander was 0-4 with a 7.85 ERA in his first six appearances with Washington. In four games since, he is 3-0 with a 2.55 ERA.<\/p>\n

Anthony Telford had the franchise’s previous four-inning save for the Montreal Expos in 1999.<\/p>\n

Washington RHP Cade Cavalli (1-2, 4.05 ERA) starts the finale of the four-game series Thursday against LHP David Peterson (2-4, 5.40).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 CJ Abrams hit a three-run homer in the first inning, Jacob Young added a two-run…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":704480,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2396],"tags":[3574,43881,88582,5,358,497,6524,759,6287,134,2101,101,88581,4,1690,61,2548,4203,9500,9501,9496,9497,39139,22858,22859,39140,22860,3887,5170],"class_list":["post-704479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-mets","tag-andres-chaparro","tag-andrew-alvarez","tag-anthony-telford","tag-baseball","tag-brett-baty","tag-cj-abrams","tag-curtis-mead","tag-david-peterson","tag-jacob-young","tag-juan-soto","tag-keibert-ruiz","tag-mets","tag-mets-nationals-score-abrams","tag-mlb","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-mets","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkmets","tag-package-100024-ap-online","tag-package-100502-member-choice-sports-option","tag-product-30599-ap-sports-news-s-wire-only","tag-product-32562-ap-online-other-sports-news","tag-product-40779-ap-delaware-maryland-sports-only","tag-product-40802-ap-new-york-city-sports-only","tag-product-40803-ap-new-york-state-sports-only","tag-product-40818-ap-virginia-sports-only","tag-product-40819-ap-washington-dc-sports-only","tag-zach-thornton","tag-zack-littell"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=704479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704479\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/704480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=704479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=704479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=704479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}