Hammer time!
Mets win opener
ALOUD encouragement was offered by a full house at Citi Field to greet the pregame announcement of the Mets’ No. 6 hitter, a thundering “Bruuuuuuuce” as if the fans were trying to coax Springsteen out for an encore.
Though it should be noted Springsteen fans are screaming for more of the same while the Mets faithful liked Jay Bruce’s opening act in a Bonilla kind of way.
So this was more a turn-the-page cheer, an optimism that a new season would bring a different result and, thus, a different relationship between crowd and slugger, a hope that with support Jay Bruce would not end up being Jason Bay’s left-handed doppelganger.
Of course, this being New York and Mets fans, if you had the fifth inning for when “Bruuuuuce” would morph seamlessly to “booooooo” you might have been on the low end. But the nastiness never came. Bruce had one good at-bat after another as part of an Opening Day that could serve as a mission statement about the quality and depth of the Mets — including that Bruce is hitting sixth.
“I think it is important to let him relax,” manager Terry Collins said following the Mets’ 6-0 victory over the Braves. “I would not be surprised if sometime soon he is hitting in the middle of our lineup. But first I thought, ‘Let’s let him relax, hit sixth.’ I know he is a better hitter [than he showed last year with the Mets]. He is a good player.”
Bruce celebrated his 30th birthday by getting to at least a threeball count in all four of his plate appearances, drawing walks in his final three, doing so with the bases loaded his last time up in a seventh inning in which the Mets scored all their runs as part of a defining frame for two NL East teams in different weight classes.
Noah Syndergaard did not come out for the seventh, a blister to his right middle finger bursting after six innings of rise-to-the-occasion brilliance. Hansel Robles began a tag-team with Fernando Salas and Robert Gsellman of three shutout innings from the Jeurys Familialess pen.
Meanwhile, the Braves used four relievers in the bottom of the seventh, a baton pass of incompetence. They followed Julio Teheran, who did his Mets killer thing yet again, holding New York hitless in 11 at-bats with men on base in six shutout innings (he now has permitted three earned runs in his last six starts and 43 innings against the Mets).
Braves manager Brian Snitker started the seventh with lefty Ian Krol to face Rene Rivera, fearing
correctly Terry Collins would have hit Michael Conforto had he summoned a righty. Rivera singled to ignite a six-run 11-batter spree in which Bruce’s third walk made it 3-0. Lucas Duda followed with a bases-clearing double.
Robles, Salas, Gsellman, Conforto on the bench, Bruce hitting sixth and Duda seventh provided a first-day snapshot of the volume and value of the Met chorus. Of course Bruce — a three-time AllStar who had the third-most homers by a lefty over the past six years — does not see himself as support staff.
“I believe I am an impact player,” he told me. “And I believe I will continue to be one.”
He also is self-aware enough to know that his first seven weeks as a Mets after being acquired from the Reds was not of Cespedes vintage (.172 average, .562 OPS before a scintillating final week). Bruce does not play games pretending he does not know how that performance played with Mets fans — “I am very aware how people felt.” Those were “booooos” not “Bruuuuce” at some point last year, impossible to miss.
Bruce insists he was not intimidated by New York — the most common Whitson-esque theory — and actually says he has never looked forward to a season more than this one, sensing the championship possibilities of the Mets, how great that would be in this huge city. Bruce emphasizes — in his walk year — he will be a reason the Mets win, but that he cannot control if he is enwrapped by home warmth. But when asked if he wants that appreciation, Bruce says it is a good question, ponders it for a second and responds, “As a human being, you want people to like you. I don’t concern myself with it consciously because it doesn’t matter, but at the end of the day I believe I will perform. I just believe if I am myself people will like me.”
On Opening Day, the secondlargest regular-season crowd in Citi Field history stayed tuned to “Bruuuce,” offering the stirring possibilities of a bolstering 2017 soundtrack for player and team.