Laura Albanese: Being stubborn has served Mets' Jared Young extremely well
Mets' Luis Torrens is congratulated by Jared Young after scoring a run during the third inning against the Padres at Petco Park on Friday in San Diego, Calif. Credit: Getty Images/Orlando Ramirez
SAN DIEGO — Before Mike Tauchman suffered a meniscus tear in the final week of spring training, it seemed unlikely that Jared Young would make the Mets’ Opening Day roster. Young, hitting .150 in eight games, had been outperformed by Tauchman.
But by the time Young went down with his own meniscus tear on April 12, with the Mets mired in what would become a 12-game losing streak, there was real worry about how the team would survive without him. He had a .295/.373/.500 slash line, two homers and five RBIs in 19 games.
Frankly, there was real worry about how the Mets would survive, period, given the fact that they weren’t hitting and they weren’t playing good defense — all notoriously important parts of being a good baseball team.
The timing of the injury “sucked,” Young told Newsday on Friday before hitting a solo home run in their 5-0 win over the Padres, the Mets’ sixth victory in eight games.
“There’s not really [anything you can do keep your timing],’’ he said. “You can’t really replicate at-bats and I can’t take any when I was able to move my legs, so there wasn’t a whole bunch I could do.” But . . . “Being stubborn in baseball is not always a bad thing.”
And Young, who outwardly fits the profile of the mild-mannered Canadian, has learned to be stubborn.
He was stubborn when he was placed on outright waivers by the Cubs in 2023 after playing 22 games with them over the course of two years, stubborn when he resuscitated his career by playing in Korea for a season, stubborn during his 43-day injury recovery (when he could have worried that he wouldn’t be able to sustain his early returns) and stubborn in the batter’s box now.
On Friday, he batted cleanup, played first and got the scoring going against Michael King, fouling off a fastball before driving a full-count changeup 422 feet to right-center for a leadoff homer in the second. He also singled in the fourth in support of Christian Scott, who went 5 2⁄3 innings. Luis Torrens also homered.
The lefthanded-hitting Young is batting .308 with six runs, a double, three homers, four RBIs and four walks in nine games since returning from the injured list. He is a legitimate weapon against righthanded pitchers, batting .333 against them with five extra-base hits.
Though he hit .300 in 75 games with Triple-A Syracuse last year, his 22 games with the Mets were uninspiring. He struggled against the fastball, hitting .190 against the pitch. This year, he’s hitting fastballs at a .467 clip. He doesn’t miss pitches in the strike zone, swinging on more than 70% of pitches in the zone and hitting more than 77% of them. And he consistently hits the ball hard, so even though he’s elevating the ball less, they’re also finding holes.
“He’s shorter to the ball, on time,” Carlos Mendoza said. “There was some swing and miss from him [last year], especially against that pitch at the top of the zone, but we’ve seen him make some adjustments. That’s what good hitters do, and I think the more he continues to get opportunities, the more he continues to play, allows him to make those adjustments.”
And those opportunities should keep coming. Mark Vientos, the Mets’ primary option at first base, has scuffled on defense and hasn’t hit righties well, batting .190 against them. Jorge Polanco, who was in play to be activated Friday, will remain in Triple-A Syracuse for the time being; the Mets want him to “continue to build volume there,” Mendoza said. Even when he returns, he’ll primarily serve as a DH.
“It’s good to see him finally get an opportunity to play every day and he’s taking his chance,” Mendoza said of Young. “That was big boy right there, that [second inning] against a pretty good pitcher.”
Young added after the game: “I’m not going to ignore that. It’s easier when you get consecutive games to play.”
So here he is, hoping to build off early returns. “It’s staying in the zone, being ready to hit and being ready to hit early — those are a couple things that will breed success,” he said.
That’s probably a good universal strategy, considering that Mendoza has noted that his team has a tendency to miss hittable pitches early in counts.
“You’d have at-bats where things aren’t going your way,” Young added, “but it’s about not getting discouraged and knowing that the plan you brought in is going to work.”
Young said his time in the KBO helped. “I think anywhere you go, you can learn from different people and the game is played a little bit different,” he said, adding that he saw a lot of off-speed pitches and that the smaller, stickier ball led to more spin.“It led me to being a more well-rounded player.”
All of it has come together to imbue him with some needed confidence — something he could lean on when he got laid up.
Said Young, “There were times where I was like, this [rehab] is getting to be a little long or it doesn’t feel the same when you come back — your body’s doing different things and not as strong — definitely, my leg [in the beginning] wasn’t as strong as it was before, but you just find the new normal.”
So what did he lean on? “Hope,” he said. And knowing that, when it is executed, his approach plays well.
“You get in the box and trust [the plan],” he said. “You don’t need to change the plan just because one at-bat didn’t go your way. That’s just how baseball is.”
The key, he said, is “believing in it a little more. It’s about being stubborn in the batter’s box.”
And out of it, too.
Laura Albanese is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. She's been covering MLB since 2014 after starting at Newsday as an intern seven years earlier.
