The scoreboard watching starts now. Juan Uribe said it, anyway, and good teams tend to follow his lead.

“Washington lost today,” Uribe said late Sunday afternoon at Citi Field after smashing a game-ending hit to cap his first weekend as a Met. “You see the other team you’re fighting in the division, and they lose, you have to win.”

So Uribe took it upon himself to deliver. A simple single was all the Mets needed in the bottom of the 10th inning against the Los Angeles Dodgers, one of his former teams. But Uribe unleashed a ferocious two-strike hack and ripped a fastball off the wall in deep left center. The Mets won, 3-2, to pull to within two games of the Nationals in the National League East.

Uribe said he wanted only to make contact, but he looked as if he wanted to hit the ball to the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge. Curtis Granderson, who doubled and scored the winning run, seemed impressed by his new teammate’s confidence in matching a power swing to closer Kenley Jansen’s power stuff.