Mets' Brett Baty taps into power potential with first career multi-home run game

Mets third baseman Brett Baty entered Friday’s matchup with the Tampa Bay Rays with just one home run, which he hit all the way back on March 30 against the Milwaukee Brewers. He left Friday’s game by tripling that total after his first career multi-home run game.

Stepping up to the plate in the second inning with two runners on and two outs, Baty sent an 0-1 sinker from Aaron Civale into orbit – so much so that right fielder Harold Ramirez lost it in the peculiar Tropicana Field roof.

The ball had a launch angle of 43 degrees and ultimately traveled 378 feet, but once it left Baty’s bat and got lost in the white abyss up top, he wasn’t sure if it was gone.

“It’s hard to see up there,” he said after the game. “They got the three rings there, or maybe four, and once it went at like right at one of the rings I didn’t see it so I was like I’m just gonna put my head down and start running.”

His manager, Carlos Mendoza – who is a little more well-versed with the quirks of the stadium after his years spent as the bench coach with the Yankees – knew right away what his third baseman just did.

“Yeah I’m familiar with this ballpark here, but I haven’t seen many go through the pool side from a lefty,” Mendoza said. “I’ve seen a lot of righties go pool side to left field, but as soon as he hit it I knew it was gone.”

Later in the game, Baty had a much clearer and more conventional home run – a mammoth solo shot in the ninth that went 421 feet with a launch angle of 27 degrees and got the Mets to within two runs as they made a comeback attempt after Jose Quintana’s clunker on the mound.

Baty finished the game 3-for-4 with four RBI, two runs scored and raised his OPS from .628 to .725. Along with being his first career multi-home run game, it was Baty’s first multi-hit game since April 12 when he got off to his hot start and was batting .327 with a .773 OPS. 

After that, the 24-year-old was in a 7-for-43 (.163 average) skid that dropped his average to .250 and went the entire month of April without hitting a home run. He made up for lost time on Friday night.

“Especially today, wow, the power, right?” Mendoza said. “The way he drove those two balls was pretty impressive and we know he’s capable of doing that. He’s been having good at-bats. He’s always in the fight and today was good to see him run into a couple of them.”

Despite the results not showing at the plate before Friday’s game, Baty continued to play stellar defense at third base and it was on display once again as he showed off his range and robbed former Met Amed Rosario of an extra-base hit with a diving stop in the fourth inning.

“As baseball players we try to separate the two as much as possible. [Francisco] Lindor has been helping me out a lot with separating the two, offense and defense, and I’ve been trying to do that,” Baty said.

It’s still very early in the season, but the maturation of Baty has been nice to see after his, as he described it, roller-coaster of a season last year as a rookie that included a late-season demotion back to Triple-A.

Friday’s game won’t define the young player, but, at the very least, it shows a glimpse of what he can be.

“I feel good. My main goal is just to go up there and have quality ABs every night and hit the ball hard and tonight it was in the air so that was good,” Baty said. “...It’s very early. We have a lot of baseball to play and so I just gotta continue that and we gotta continue that as a team. We’re playing good baseball and we just need to continue that, there’s a long way to go.”