The Mets are turning into the Marvel movie series. They employ an abundance of superheroes, and the audience enthusiasm shows no sign of abatement.
So the return of Yoenis Cespedes Tuesday night, following his brief absence, made perfect sense. With minimal screen time, the outfielder reasserted his status as king of Citi Field’s hero hill.
A snoozer of a ballgame turned into one to remember when Cespedes, out since Friday with a bruised right leg, came off the bench to deliver a pinch-hit, seventh-inning game-tying, three-run homer. When the ailing spiritual leader of this group David Wright followed with an RBI single, the Mets had themselves a fifth straight victory, 4-3 over the lousy Reds.
“You just shake your head,” manager Terry Collins said. “Special players do great things when you’re not expecting it.”
Of course, Cespedes accomplished this feat on the first pitch he saw from Cincinnati’s starting pitcher Brandon Finnegan.
Of course, he hit the ball so hard, a laser over the orange line atop the left-field wall that ricocheted back in play, that it took a moment for everyone to realize it was a homer and not just a long, strong single.
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Of course, with Kevin Plawecki at bat and pitcher Logan Verrett due up, Collins put Lucas Duda on deck as the apparent pinch hitter, only to yank Duda and turn to Cespedes, generating a wave of sound from the folks here on this cold night, once the Reds opted to stick with their southpaw starter Finnegan.
Collins didn’t mind trying to mess with Reds manager Bryan Price, who had visited the mound to chat with Finnegan right before that at-bat. Yet there was more going on behind the scenes than just that. Of course.
“I didn’t know where the hell he was,” Collins said of the mercurial Cespedes. “I heard, ‘He’s coming, he’s coming!’ ”
He came, all right. And then he left: In the baseball equivalent of an entertainer dropping the mic upon slaying the audience, Cespedes took off before speaking with reporters.
The last time Cespedes played in his home stadium, April 13, he made an ill-advised leap into the stands to try to catch a foul ball. That resulted in the bruised right leg that sidelined him for three full games and caused the Mets medical staff to drain fluid from the knee on Monday. The play underlined the first component of Cespedes’ high-risk, high-reward approach to the game.
How fitting, then, that in his first game back home, Cespedes displayed the high reward. While this hardly ranked as a must-win contest, with Bartolo Colon and his teammates falling into a 3-0 hole, the more wins the Mets can pick up against the National League’s lower tier, a sector in which the Reds most definitely reside, the less pressure they put on themselves when the tougher teams arrive on their schedule.
It became Cespedes’ turn to save the day. Thor (Noah Syndergaard), after all, rested after his mediocre-for-him, great-for-most-others start on Monday that led to a Mets win. The Dark Knight (Matt Harvey) goes Wednesday night for the series weep. The newest slugger on the scene, second baseman Neil Walker, clocked an 0-for-4. Michael Conforto contributed two hits, just at the wrong times.
And after Cespedes electrified the place, Curtis Granderson ripped a triple off the left-center field wall and scored the game-winner, one out later, on a base hit by Wright, whose rough stretch of recent games raised more questions about how much he can help as he battles his spinal stenosis.
Another satisfying ending for this group looking to avenge its World Series loss. Another storybook moment for Cespedes, the man who became the most exciting player on this very exciting team from virtually the moment he showed up last August 1.
“He can change a game just like that,” Plawecki said of Cespedes.
Shoot, he changed a whole season last year. Who’s betting against a sequel?