A Long Way

There’s a lot one could say about Ronny Mauricio‘s third-inning home run in Denver Saturday night, starting with the fact that it went 456 feet and came down in the third deck.

That’s … a long way. The third deck is a place where fans sit contentedly expecting not to be involved in the proceedings way down there on the field — in the replay from the camera behind home, the spot where the ball came down isn’t even in frame.

It was the longest home run hit by a Met this year … and Mauricio’s teammates, you will recall, include Pete Alonso and Juan Soto. And it’s not the first time Mauricio’s elbowed aside notable personages on the Hitting Superlatives leaderboard: In September 2023, his first big-league plate appearance yielded a 117.3 MPH double at Citi Field, the highest exit velocity recorded for a Met that season.

What struck me was that Mauricio has easy power. He doesn’t look like he’s swinging that hard — he uses his long arms to kind of flick the ball into the air, only to have it come down in another county. There’s a lot still to refine in Mauricio’s game — he chases too much and talk of his defensive versatility is a nice way of saying he’s not ideally suited to any position — but the bat speed and the easy power will carry him a long way.

Mauricio’s drive was the headline, but it had some company as the Mets shoved the Rockies aside: Jared Young and Jeff McNeil also homered, Brandon Nimmo contributed three RBIs, Luis Torrens tallied a pair and Francisco Lindor had three hits and two steals on a broken toe. (Long night for German Marquez, who came into the fifth having given up just one run but then saw everything come crashing down.)

The Rockies, meanwhile, had one of those quietly bad games that contribute to a terrible season without being particularly notable: plays not made, pitches not executed, bases not taken, games not won. Did Clay Holmes show admirable fortitude in allowing nine hits but just one run, or did the Rockies just fail to capitalize? Hey, why not both?

Anyway, the Rockies packed the house and so added bulk to Dick Monfort’s already bulky wallet, which is a Pyrrhic victory. At least they looked better in taking aim at their own feet: Those daiquiri City Connect 2.0s from Friday night are still branded on my retinas.

The Mets moved 17 games over .500, their high-water mark for the season (their high-water mark so far, says the optimist), and expanded their NL East lead over the suddenly flailing, battered Phillies to three and a half games. All good things ahead of one more game with Colorado and then a day off that should give the relief corps (newly expanded with the acquisition of two pitching-lab subjects in Justin Garza and Julian Merryweather) a badly needed breather.

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, but maybe the Mets too can go a long way.