Lucas Duda did his best to answer two offseason questions with one swing — his status as a middle of the lineup hitter and his ability to left-handers.
With the Mets’ offense amassing just two hits until Eric Young Jr.’s triple in the ninth inning, Lucas Duda stepped to the plate with two outs against southpaw Tony Sipp and produced one of the most memorable moments of his breakout season, blasting a game-winning home run off the foul pole in right field to give the Mets a 2-1 win over the Astros.
It was Duda’s first career walk-off home run and his career-best 29th of the season, tying him for third in the National League.
“One of the things he’s trying to really prove is that, he’s talked about that he can hit lefties,” Collins said of Duda, who entered the game hitting .174 against lefties. “He’s focused on doing that.
“He’s got [88] RBIs and that shows you exactly the kind of damage he can do. For him, I think he’s going to go into the offseason very confident that he’s a middle of the order guy.”
A man of little visible emotion, Duda ran around the bases with an impossible-to-erase smile, hurling his helmet into the air before leaping towards his teammates at home.
The season, which started with him splitting time at first base with Ike Davis, is now ending with the 28-year-old having become the team’s most dangerous hitter. The only thing more exciting than Saturday night is thinking about next year.
“From a team standpoint, obviously we’re not where we want to be, but personally I feel like I kind of took a step in the right direction here,” Duda said. “This is kind of a building year and hopefully I’ll continue to build on it and take it into next year. It’s definitely going to be fun next year.”
The Mets earned their 78th win of the season, the team’s most since Collins and Sandy Alderson’s first seasons in 2011.
Collins said Jon Niese was feeling well after leaving Friday night’s start with an elevated heart rate, and the southpaw was scheduled to meet with a doctor on Monday. Collins also said Kirk Nieuwenhuis, who was scratched before Friday’s game, was in the hospital with an infection “of some type”, but the outfielder was expected to be released on Sunday.
The Mets bullpen threw 3²/₃ scoreless innings, having improved their ERA to 0.65 over the past 10 games. … Despite going 0-for-3 Saturday, Granderson is hitting .351 (26-for-74) with four home runs and 17 RBIs, over his past 21 games. … The Mets are 37-30 in games started by Young this season.