Mets' Brett Baty drawing rave reviews as potential Jeff McNeil fill-in
Brett Baty is not surprising with his hot hitting, but has been “really, really good” up the middle, manager Carlos Mendoza said. Credit: Getty Images/Megan Briggs
PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — The Mets have not publicly named a fill-in second baseman for the weeks Jeff McNeil will miss because of a strained right oblique, but Brett Baty has drawn rave reviews from manager Carlos Mendoza in recent days — and not even for his hot hitting.
Playing plenty of second base — and his native third base in a 3-2 win over the Cardinals on Friday — Baty has been “really, really good” up the middle, Mendoza said.
Perhaps his best moment in the field came Thursday night against the Nationals, when he paired with shortstop Francisco Lindor for a slick double play. Shaded toward the first-base side, Baty ran to the bag, received a flip from Lindor (who was behind the base), jumped and fired a cross-body throw to first.
Mendoza called it “very athletic.” Baty was pumped about what he described as “pretty good chemistry” with a still-new double-play partner.
“That’s not an easy thing to do, especially when you’re learning that position,” Mendoza said. “And the range he has shown. I knew it was there, but to see it at second base up the middle, going to the right, going to the left, having the awareness on where to go on cuts and relays, and the communication in between pitches with not only Lindor but the other infielders.”
McNeil remains in a shut-down holding pattern because he is “still feeling some symptoms” in his oblique, Mendoza said. He won’t be cleared for baseball activities until he gets another MRI, and he won’t get one until he is symptom-free.
That renders the second-base situation all the more interesting, as it might drag on through at least the first half of April.
Baty, batting .354 with a 1.123 OPS in Grapefruit League games after another double and another home run Friday, is a primary option. Luisangel Acuna, a surer thing defensively but not so much offensively, is another. He owns a .256 average and .568 OPS.
“When he controls the strike zone, we know he can do some damage,” Mendoza said of Acuna.
Does Mendoza prefer to have one regular second baseman in McNeil’s absence?
“It’ll play itself out. We’ll see how it goes at the beginning,” he said. “Hopefully a guy gets an opportunity and runs with it.”
Notes & quotes: Starling Marte manned rightfield for five innings, his first time playing the field during exhibition games as he continues to manage right knee pain. He said his knee feels “completely different,” in a good way, than it did in the playoffs, and he anticipates working out /being an option in leftfield, a position he hasn’t played regularly since 2017 . . . Opening Day starter Clay Holmes threw 88 pitches in 5 1⁄3 scoreless innings, the final layer of his “foundation,” he said, for his first major-league season as a starting pitcher. He had a 0.93 ERA in five exhibition games. “Pretty good, not going to lie,” Mendoza said. “But it’s spring training. Now gotta translate it to the regular season.” Holmes said: “I haven’t been this excited to attack a season, attack the next day in a while. It’s given me some excitement, something to look forward to.”
Tim Healey is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. Born on Long Island and raised in Connecticut, Tim has previously worked for the South Florida Sun Sentinel, the Boston Globe and MLB.com. He is also the author of “Hometown Hardball,” a book about minor league baseball in the northeast.
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