After 51 days on the disabled list, the Mets got a much needed bat back in their lineup Wednesday night with the return of Travis d’Arnaud, who went 1-for-4 with a double and two runs scored in the loss.
“I feel like I had a few quality at-bats,” said d’Arnaud, who missed more than seven weeks with a broken finger. “I hit a few balls hard, so I was very happy about that.”
D’Arnaud took a few wild hacks early last night, which is pretty expected when someone’s missed as much time as he has. He was rusty, and possibly a bit overanxious as well early on in this game, but I thought he looked better as the night went on. In his final at-bat in the 8th, Travis had his best struck ball of the night when he ripped a double to the left field wall.
“I thought he swung the bat well,” Collins said. “I thought he caught well. He caught some tough pitches tonight. I was very impressed with the fact that he hadn’t been up here in a long time.”
It was really a shame when d’Arnaud was placed on the disabled list in late April, as in the first few weeks of the season, he was arguably the Mets best offensive player. In 11 games prior to fracturing his finger, d’Arnaud hit .317 with two home runs, a double, a triple and 10 RBI. In 33 games as his major replacement, rookie Kevin Plawecki hit just .211 with five doubles, the same amount of home runs (2), 13 RBI and 31 strikeouts. Mets catchers as a whole hit .183 in the 51 days since d’Arnaud went down.
David Wright and Daniel Murphy are still on the disabled list and even when they do return, the team probably needs to acquire offense via the trade market, but there’s no question that the return of d’Arnaud will be a major boost for this team. I wouldn’t expect Travis to keep up exactly where he left off–51 days is a long time to not play in the major leagues–but when he does get up to speed, that’s one less major hole this team has to deal with.
Just Mets 