Two games, two Reyes runs.
Jose Reyes is already making an impact, sparking the lethargic Mets’ offense after returning from a left oblique strain Saturday.
He got the Mets an early lead Saturday with his legs, and he added an important insurance run Sunday with them in the Mets’ 5-1 victory over the Padres, the first time they have strung together consecutive victories since July 6-7.
“We needed that,” Mets manager Terry Collins said he heard multiple players say on the bench.
“And that’s what he can do and that’s why he’s such a valuable guy,” Collins added.
When asked about his aggressiveness on the bases, Reyes smiled and said: “You’re going to see more of that.”
Reyes, who missed 17 games, led off the home eighth with a single, stole second and went to third on catcher Derek Norris’ throwing error. He made it 3-0 on Jose Dominguez’s wild pitch. In the two games he’s been back, Reyes hasn’t hit the cover off the ball. But he has played flawlessly at shortstop — he’ll remain there until Asdrubal Cabrera expectedly returns from a strained left patella tendon during the Mets’ upcoming 10-game road trip — and while he has gone just 1-for-8 at the plate with a walk, he has scored those two runs.
“I’m here to do my job at the top of the lineup. My job here is to get on base and make stuff happen like I’ve been doing the last two days,” Reyes said, who signed with the Mets on June 25 after he was released by the Rockies following a 52-game suspension for violating MLB’s domestic violence policy. “The more I get on base, the more situations like that you’re going to see.
“Hopefully I start to turn it around, get on base more and continue to help this ball club.”
The offensively challenged Mets could really use it, particularly on this upcoming 10-game road trip that takes them to Arizona, San Francisco and St. Louis. They are expected to get Yoenis Cespedes back in San Francisco, and they’ve already received a spark from the 33-year-old Reyes.
“You see it with Jose at the top of the lineup. He just kind of makes the rest of the lineup work a little bit better,” second baseman Neil Walker said. “When you throw [Cespedes] back in the middle, you can move me around or move Jay [Bruce] around or [Wilmer Flores] around, whatever the case may be.
“The lineup just starts to lengthen. We’re scratching and clawing right now, but we know there’s some reinforcements on the way and our lineup in the next several days here — not that it hasn’t looked good — but it’s going to be a little bit longer than it’s been in a real long time.”