David Lennon: Mets still need to smooth rough corners
Mets third baseman Bo Bichette sets during the first inning against the Pittsburgh Pirates in an MLB baseball game at Citi Field on Thursday. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
In assembling the 2026 Mets, president of baseball operations David Stearns admittedly took a few leaps of faith. One of the biggest has worked out pretty well in Luis Robert Jr., whose walk-off three-run homer in the 11th inning on Saturday delivered a 4-2 win over the Pirates at chilly, wind-swept Citi Field.
With Robert, however, it’s more about mining the talent that’s definitely there despite being in hibernation for the past few years, held hostage by numerous injuries. Stearns figured as long as they’re able to keep Robert healthy (fingers crossed through two games), he can return to his All-Star form of 2023.
That gamble is looking good. With one mighty swing, on a slider just above his shoetops, Robert helped the Mets emerge victorious after falling behind in both the 10th (1-0) and 11th (2-1) innings. That’s kind of a big deal for the Mets when you consider they were 0-70 last season when trailing after eight innings or later. It’s as impossible a stat as anyone could imagine, but perfectly emblematic of that doomed squad.
“It’s a different group,” manager Carlos Mendoza said after Saturday’s win.
Now to the stuff that could be a bit more concerning for Mendoza going forward, or the non-Robert portion of Stearns’ winter rebuild. And that’s the run-prevention strategy that could have difficulty preventing runs if the corner defense doesn’t tighten up significantly in the relative short term.
Everyone understood that signing Bo Bichette for his bat and worrying about his transition to third base would come with some growing pains. The same could be said for Jorge Polanco, though letting franchise home run king Pete Alonso walk as part of that decision could haunt the Mets down the line.
Bichette had a bumpy afternoon at third base but still didn’t derail the Mets’ late-inning magic. Polanco also was shaky, though not damaging to the club’s efforts, and his leadoff walk in the 11th inning set up Robert’s heroics.
For Sunday’s finale, it’s expected that Polanco will wind up in the DH spot and Brett Baty will make his Mets debut at first base, a swap that should make for a defensive upgrade at that position.
“There’s a good chance that he’ll start moving around the infield and outfield, especially with us playing nine in a row,” Mendoza said.
The Mets didn’t leave Port St. Lucie saying their corner-infield experiments were finished projects by any means, primarily because that wouldn’t be a true statement but also due to them hoping for significant improvement.
What else could the Mets realistically expect? They signed a starting third baseman in Bichette who had never played third base before. As for Polanco, his resume included standing at first base for the whopping total of one pitch during his 13-year career.
The Mets’ rationalization? Well, that’s what spring training was for — turning both into passable defenders at those positions, or at least not being severe liabilities. Two games into this season, Bichette and Polanco appear to land somewhere in the middle of that spectrum.
There were a few rough edges on Opening Day, but nothing serious enough to derail an easy 11-7 victory over the Pirates. Bichette’s throws showed a tendency to drift up the first-base line, repeatedly putting Polanco in jeopardy, but the additional drama didn’t prove costly.
Bichette actually flashed some decent reflexes on a few hard-hit balls and Polanco even helped him out on one occasion, making a nifty grab-and-tag as he came off the base to snare an errant throw. But you still can see the gears grinding inside both defenders, and that clunkiness usually leads to problems.
Some of that surfaced during Saturday’s frigid late-afternoon/early-evening victory over Pittsburgh. It began in promising enough fashion, with Polanco again bailing out Bichette with a slap-tag on another of his off-target throws in the second inning. But the scary moments didn’t stop there, and when Bichette had a repeat in the fourth on Bryan Reynolds’ grounder, Polanco’s only option was to make sure the ball didn’t go sailing into the Mets’ dugout (the error went to Bichette).
That blunder almost left a mark, too. Reynolds made it as far as third base with two outs before David Peterson finally got Nick Yorke on a grounder to second to kill the threat. But with defense, it’s not just about the runs. Giving the Pirates an extra out that inning meant Peterson had to throw more pitches, driving up his count and also costing him some stamina on a day when the wind chill was in the mid-30s.
“I went out there and just tried to focus on executing one pitch at a time,” Peterson said. “Just doing my job.”
Defensively speaking, Bichette and Polanco are still trying to get the hang of their new assignments. To Polanco’s credit, he’s already made a few successful flips to first base without putting his pitchers on the injured list — Alonso often turned those scenarios into an adventure — and one of his clunkier moments with the glove Saturday actually was ruled a hit. That was in the sixth, when Nick Gonzales’ hard grounder seemed to take a bad hop, causing him to fumble it.
Now that the games count, Bichette and Polanco will be under a microscope. But with the Mets off to a 2-0 start, any glitches can be excused as long as they don’t linger.
“Just reps — they got to continue to work,” Mendoza said.
Thanks to Robert, that process continued Saturday in the background, all but forgotten in the giddy postgame celebration.
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.
