There was a moment last Saturday evening, when Yankees right-hander Michael King blew a 96-mph fastball by Yoenis Cespedes, when you went, hmmm. Maybe the sim-game power wasn’t going to show up in actual competition. Maybe you can’t miss nearly two years and return as an impact player at 34 years old.
“Some people said good things,” Cespedes said after he, uh, strongly impacted the Mets 1-0 Opening Day win with the solo home run that decided it. “A lot of people said bad things. That was one of the things that kept me motivated.”
Hi. Hello. I said bad things. I said last year on a podcast, “it’s a damn shame the Mets signed this player,” and someone on Cespedes’ team at Roc Nation Sports found the audio and used it at the beginning of his hype video this spring (that might still be the correct analysis, by the way. Let’s see how the season plays out).
But, um, you’re welcome? I and other bad talkers motivated the guy, according to him.
Look, we don’t know how Cespedes’ legs will hold up for the next few months. We don’t know if the 94-mph fastball from Chris Martin that he drove over the left field wall was an indication that he was all the way back.
But we do know that Cespedes won a game for the Mets in 2020. And we know that he has a flair for extremely dramatic moments.
That was true in 2013, when he dazzled us with his Home Run Derby performance at Citi Field. It was true in 2015, when he led the Mets to a pennant. And it was true in 2018, when he blasted a home run at Yankee Stadium and stunned his own team afterward by announcing he needed foot surgery that could cost him two seasons. Hell, even his setback was dramatic -- most players tweak something in a rehab game; Cespedes possibly fought a wild boar.
Still, the idea that he could return as a dynamic player has seemed borderline ridiculous. He’s a figure from a different Mets era. Asking the 2015 hero to be a middle-of-the-order presence in 2020 would be like asking Keith Hernandez to spearhead in the Mets offense … in 1991. His heroics happened a long time ago.
Watching Cespedes during the resumption of spring training was a mixed bag. He hit an early home run in an intrasquad game, but he didn’t exactly dazzle on a daily basis. The trainers advised him to run at 75-80 percent, which seemed doable but less than ideal.
Then, in his first test against outside competition, Cespedes did not appear up to speed. The Yankees’ King had good stuff -- but nevertheless, Cespedes could not catch up to it.
It was actually in the next game against the Yankees, on Sunday night, that he quietly found his rhythm, even while going hitless in two at-bats.
“That’s when I started to feel back to normal with my timing,” Cespedes said.
In the week since at Citi Field, as the Mets tuned up for the season, he looked okay. Nothing especially dynamic. But Cespedes is a red light player, a prideful person who finds an extra level when the world is watching and jerks are doubting him.
“I wanted to do well,” he said of the Yankees series. “But at the same time I knew those games didn’t count the same way as these do here.”
It all counts now, for the Mets and for Cespedes, who is a free-agent-to-be. A strong season and his career continues. An ineffective campaign and it does not.
The red light is on -- and, despite my own prognosis, the first act was a hit.