Mandatory Credit: Andy Marlin-USA TODAY Sports

More than 24 hours after it started, the Mets won the first game of the series against the Nationals 8-7.

The game got started Tuesday night, but the teams only made it through one inning plus one batter before the rain at Citi Field became too heavy to play in. Before the delay, though, the Nationals pushed three runs across on a Juan Soto homer before Carlos Carrasco could record an out. The Mets scratched back a run with back-to-back two-out doubles by Pete Alonso and Dominic Smith.

Carrasco allowed Riley Adams to reach to open the second, but then the umpires called on the tarp.

Two hours later, the game was officially suspended and pushed to resume at 4:10 p.m. Wednesday. And that’s when the craziness started.

Rich Hill volunteered to pitch in relief Wednesday (he was lined up to pitch that day, anyway), and he started the game with three solid frames against the Nationals lineup. (He did allow Carrasco’s runner to score, albeit on a missed fly ball by Smith.) The Mets were able to claw back to an even 4-4 with a three-run third inning off Joe Ross, too, thanks to RBIs from Jeff McNeil, Michael Conforto and J.D. Davis.

But the Nats, who’d been putting up solid at-bats on Hill in innings two through four, tee’d off on the lefty to start the fifth inning. Hill allowed three straight base runners, capped by a Luis Garcia double that brought in two runs. He left the game without recording an out in the fifth.

Garcia came around to score on an Adams single off Jeurys Familia, but the Nats wouldn’t score after that, thanks to scoreless innings from Miguel Castro, Drew Smith and Trevor May.

That left the Mets with a 7-4 deficit.

Conforto was able to get one back the very next frame with an RBI single that brough McNeil home from first. (Juan Soto threw the ball to the wrong cutoff man, which, along with running on 3-2 with two outs, allowed the Squirrel to score.)

Two frames later, Pete Alonso crushed his third hard-hit ball of the game–this one a 108 mile-per-hour double that was inches away from a homer to dead center–to bring the Mets to 7-6.

Then, with a little help from reliever Mason Thompson, the Mets brought it home in the eighth. J.D. Davis opened the inning with a double, then, in Jonathan Villar‘s attempt to sacrifice Davis to third, Thompson threw the ball poorly to first and the ball skipped into the outfield. Seven all.

Naturally, Brandon Drury, the Mets’ best pinch hitter all season (10-for-21 in pinch-hit scenarios), came up two batters later with Villar standing on third. He fisted a 97 m.p.h. sinker over the second base bag as the infield was playing in, and the Mets took a lead for the first time in 43 innings. I repeat: 43 innings!!

Edwin Diaz shut down the Nats in an eight-pitch ninth, which included a strikeout of Juan Soto.

The Mets’ offense was able to salvage a game where they used two starters–Hill and Carrasco–and those starters allowed seven runs and only recorded 12 outs. It was the team’s first win in five games, and it may end up as the most energizing of the year.

The Mets still have a scheduled game to play Wednesday, and that will start around 8 p.m. It’ll be shortened to seven innings because of doubleheader rules.

Marcus Stroman (7-11, 2.83 ERA) will take the mound against the Nationals, who plan to use the shortened game as a bullpen game. The Nats have the fourth-worst bullpen ERA in the majors since the All-Star break.