METS’ HITTERS POWER PAST NATS:
Big 3 deliver first big blows of ’18 to rival Nats
WASHINGTON — Yoenis Cespedes compared it to a boxing match. The way the Mets’ slugger sees it, his team came out and delivered the first big hit of the bout with an 8-2 win over the Nationals Thursday, spoiling their home opener at Nationals Park. Like a challenger taking on a champion in the ring, it was important for the Mets to come out and set the tone against their National League East rivals. Cespedes said it was important to land the first blow. “Not just for me, for the whole team,” Cespedes said through the team’s interpreter. “There is a saying that goes ‘if you hit first, you hit twice.’ It’s important for us to win the first game.” Cespedes helped deliver the punch Thursday with a homer in the fourth inning. Then he took credit for predicting another, the most dramatic of the day. Michael Conforto, in his first game back from shoulder surgery last September, homered off Stephen Strasburg in his third at-bat.
Cespedes, smiling, said he called it.
“Everybody knows the talent that Conforto has,” Cespedes said. “His first homer is in fact mine, because I called it before he hit it.
“I said he is going to hit a homer to left field,” Cespedes explained.
When asked how he knew, Cespedes smiled and said in English, “because I know Michael.”
And now the Nationals know that the Mets, a team they have gone 25-13 against in winning the division the past two years, will be a team that they will need to contend with this season. “I would hope they think that,” new Mets manager Mickey Callaway said. “We’re going to go out there and play as hard as we can every day, play baseball the right way and if we do that and then they probably do need to worry about us.” Thursday, the combination of pitching and power that the Mets have been building their hopes on for the past few years finally all came together.
When that’s clicking for the Mets, it’s a worrisome sight for the rest of the division.
Jacob deGrom had to grind through a sixth inning jam to pick up his second win of 2018. The Nationals scored on Jay Bruce’s fielding error in the first and on an RBI-double to the left field corner by Anthony Rendon in the third. DeGrom got in trouble in the sixth, giving up a leadoff single to Brian Goodwin and then walking Rendon and Bryce Harper on eight straight balls. He got a fly ball out from Ryan Zimmerman and Howie Kendrick lined out to shortstop before deGrom struck out Trea Turner to get out of trouble.
The bullpen pitched three scoreless innings and has now allowed just three earned runs in 23.1 innings pitched this season.
Impressive pitching has been there before for the Mets, but Thursday was the first time this season the full power potential of their outfield was on display.
Cespedes, who missed 81 games last season, homered for the third time in six games and second time in as many games. Conforto, who had not
played in a game since Aug. 24, 2017, hit a ball just over the left field fence in his third at-bat for the game-winning run. It was a solid return after months of rehab from surgery to repair his left shoulder after he dislocated it on a swing.
And Bruce, who was dealt to Cleveland last August in the Mets’ payroll dump, made sure the message was clear Thursday with the finishing blow. He smashed a grand slam deep into the right field stands in the seventh inning. “I think we saw it a little bit last year, for sure. There is definitely power in the outfield,” Conforto said. “I think what we’re seeing early in the season is the guys are grinding at-bats, seeing a lot of pitches, they’re taking their walks when they need to. Just keep the line moving. There is just going to be somebody in this lineup and they are going to run into it.
“I think it’s big.”