Buck Showalter loves to say that as long as the Mets’ offense has an out remaining, they have a chance to win. 

That resilience was on display once again Friday night at Citi Field, as Showalter’s first-place team pulled out its 81st win with yet another late rally, this time for a 7-6 victory over the Rockies — on Pete Alonso’s RBI single in the ninth inning. 

“Everybody has that ability [for comebacks], but whether you can tap into it is another thing,” the manager said. “When momentum changes, we talk about it all the time, and they talk about it, stay in the moments. 

“Whatever happened, happened, and you can’t do anything about it. Let’s go ahead and move to the next challenge, and they’ve done it all year. The job description requires it here.” 

Shaky deadline acquisition Mychal Givens had flushed a 4-3 lead for starter Chris Bassitt in the eighth inning when he allowed a three-run double by Elias Diaz, but the Mets forged a 6-6 tie with two unearned runs in the bottom half of the eighth. The game-tying rally featured a two-out error by Colorado third baseman Ryan McMahon and a two-run double by Mark Canha off reliever Carlos Estevez. 

After closer Edwin Diaz worked a scoreless ninth to maintain the tie, the Mets posted their sixth walk-off win of the season. Brandon Nimmo worked a one-out walk against closer Daniel Bard and Starling Marte was hit by a pitch. Colorado left fielder Sam Hilliard made a diving catch of Francisco Lindor’s liner to left, but Alonso followed with a single through the shortstop hole to score Nimmo with the winning run. 

“Can you imagine that type of power at your fingertips and in your ability and be able to give in a little bit and try to deliver what the team needs?” Showalter said of Alonso. “He’s not sneaking up on anybody out there. He gets everybody’s best shot. … It requires a lot of fortitude.” 

Rookie Brett Baty belted his first home run at Citi Field to lead off the third inning, as the Mets moved 35 games over .500 (81-46) to remain two games ahead of the Braves in the NL East. 

“We don’t panic and we trust how good we are,” said Bassitt, who allowed three runs over 7 ¹/₃ innings (88 pitches). “You have to get 27 outs against us. We don’t stop until the end.” 

The Mets extended their lead with two outs in the fifth on Marte’s two-run triple. Canha had been hit by a pitch (his 16th of the Mets’ MLB-high 85 this year) and James McCann singled earlier in the inning. 

Bassitt coughed up the cushion in the sixth, however, on a two-run double by Brendan Rodgers and a run-scoring single to right by C.J. Cron for a 3-3 score. Still, the Mets retook the lead in the bottom half on Canha’s double off the wall that drove in Darin Ruf, although Jeff McNeil, trying to score from first, was thrown out at the plate on a 8-4-2 relay play for the second out of the inning. 

After Bassitt breezed through a perfect seventh on just six pitches for a total of 85, Showalter sent the 2021 All-Star back out with the one-run lead for the eighth. 

A one-out single by Charlie Blackmon prompted Showalter to summon Givens, who quickly allowed a broken-bat single by Cron before clipping Jose Iglesias with a pitch to load the bases. After a strikeout of Randal Grichuk for the second out, Elias ripped a double to the wall in right-center to score all three runners. 

“He had a chance to get out of it and get the ball to [Diaz], but that one pitch got a lot of the plate,” Showalter said. 

Despite the bad night by Givens, who has allowed 11 earned runs on 16 hits in 9 ¹/₃ innings over his first 11 appearances since his arrival from the Cubs, the Mets found a way to pull out another victory. 

“It’s a privilege to be up in those situations,” Alonso said of the ninth-inning rally. “We had a ton of great at-bats prior to mine and I thought we did an unbelievable job as an offense grinding and battling all night.”