What the first two wins are demonstrating for the Mets

Plus, the Mets walked off the Pirates in extra innings, and notes on Bo Bichette's early struggles

What’s Up with the Mets? ⚾️

• The Mets hung on to beat the Pirates in a Saturday stunner, 4-2 (box)

• After working a 10-pitch walk that sparked Opening Day’s first inning firestorm, CF Luis Robert Jr. walked off yesterday’s contest with a three-run homer in the 11th inning

• C Luis Torrens drove in the Mets’ first run of the game to tie it in the 10th

• LHP David Peterson got his season off to a solid start, allowing zero runs on six hits scattered across 5.1 innings. He issued two walks and struck out three Pirates

• RHP Luke Weaver and RHP Devin Williams threw scoreless innings in their Mets debuts; LHP Brooks Raley delivered a perfect frame, with two strikeouts

• RHP Luis Garcia and LHP Richard Lovelady allowed their ghost runners to score, but limited the damage to one run apiece to keep the Mets in the game

• The Mets went 3-for-14 with runners in scoring position and left nine runners on-base

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Play of the Game ✨

In the bottom of the 11th with the Mets trailing 2-1 against the Pirates on Saturday, Luis Robert Jr. hit a three-run walk-off home run to seal a series win:

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What I’m Reading 📖

• Luis Robert Jr. is proving the doubters wrong early (The Athletic)

• Nolan McLean is ‘absolutely better’ than last year (New York Post)

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What I’m Watching 📺

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Down on the Farm 🌾

• 3B Ronny Mauricio: 1-for-4, 1 RBI, 1 SB

• DH Christian Arroyo: 2-for-4, 1 RBI

• RF MJ Melendez: 0-for-3, 1 BB, 1 SB, 1 R

BOX SCORE

Triple-A SYR | The rest of the Minor League season starts on April 2, 3

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Today’s Game 🗓

Match-up: Mets (2-0) vs. Pirates (0-2)

Where: Citi Field - Flushing, NY

Starters: RHP Nolan McLean (0-0) vs. RHP Carmen Mlodzinski (0-0)

When: 1:40 PM EDT

Where to Watch: SNY

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‘Grit’ already proving to be one of this season’s core themes ✍️

Imagn Images

The 2026 Mets season is only two games deep, but this team’s on-the-field ethos is already discernibly different from that of the group that collapsed last year.

The first glimpses that this year could be different appeared quickly on Opening Day: after falling behind 2-0 early, the Mets immediately responded with five runs of their own, chasing Paul Skenes out of the game before the first inning was over. The Pirates kept it interesting all day, but the Mets consistently strung together smart, competitive at-bats that generated crucial runs when opportunities presented themselves.

As multiple Mets would go on to describe it themselves, it was a ‘gritty,’ complete team effort. Yesterday, that same grit was on display again, but it manifested differently.

It was a viscerally different day than Thursday — from a near-perfect playing environment to a cold field with whipping wind, both teams struggling to get runs across.

And yet, despite some slightly ugly defense, and an all too familiar, inexplicable inability to drive runners in with no outs on the board, the Mets still found several ways to win a game they trailed several times late.

Three things have been made immediately clear by this lineup:

1. They’re going to make pitchers work. In these first two games, Mets hitters are seeing 4.35 pitches per plate appearance (P/PA). They’re also generating a 38% foul-strike rate — evidence of the contact-heavy profile that was anticipated in the offseason and demonstrated in camp.

2. They’re going to walk a lot. The Mets have walked 14 times in their first 20 innings of 2026, tied for fifth-most in MLB so far. They walked a lot in 2025, too, also ranking fifth in the league at season’s end. So far, they’re turning those free bases into runs: the Mets are third in MLB in RBI and fourth in runs scored.

3. They’re going to stay selective at the plate. This is a slight reiteration of the last point, but while walks will likely be plentiful (as they were last year), I also anticipate there will be a roster-wide drop in swing rate as the year progresses. So far, they’re swinging at just a 35% clip — almost a full 10 points lower than the 2025 team.

The only Met who really seems to be a bit out of sorts is Bo Bichette. Though there have been some slight misplays at third base, I’m not tremendously concerned about his defense still. Just two games into the season, don’t expect to see any deviations from the game plan just yet — Bichette will be the full-time third baseman for at least the coming month. In-game reps were always going to be a critical part of Bichette’s (and Polanco’s) defensive development, and even though there have been some rough-looking plays that have led to a bit more work for the pitching staff, the Mets remain 2-0. There needs to be some semblance of a grace period for growth in the field; if the experiment proves to be a hurdle in May, there’s ample time to make a switch.

NY Post

What’s been tougher to watch has been Bichette’s approach at the plate so far, something most Mets fans have likely also quickly picked up on. He’s clearly pressing: Bichette has taken more swings than any Met in these two games (69% swing rate vs. 44% team rate), and chased more than anyone else in the process (~60% chase vs. ~22% team rate). A handful of plate appearances isn’t much, and there’s no doubt he’ll settle in, but it’s such a stark departure from his usual profile (53% career swing rate) it’s hard not to notice. His stat line should look much different in a month once he’s settled in and the lineup has found its rhythm.

The bullpen has also looked mostly stable through these first few outings, again in different looks. On Opening Day, we saw Tobias Myers complete the first of what should be quite a few long-relief outings this season; yesterday, we saw a marathon of arms come in and limit damage in an perpetually-close game. Though Luis Garcia doesn’t appear to be a long-term solution at the back end of this group, just about everyone has shown up when called upon.

The way the staff has gone about their business so far is another testament to that ‘gritty’ mentality that seems to have taken over this roster. Be it in an inning-eating outing while your team’s up five runs or a series of single-inning lockdowns with a bunch of strikeouts and some scattered empty hits, this team is demonstrating early that it has all the pieces it needs to win in a variety of ways. Even when the new de facto ace has a less-than-stellar day, or the lineup has failed to provide run support, the Mets are out to show that a game is truly never over with them until the final out is recorded.

It goes without saying that two games isn’t remotely a reasonable sample to start drawing conclusions from; it should also be self-explanatory that ranking in the top-5 league-wide in any offensive category after two games is far from predictive of how the remaining 160 games will go. There’s plenty of baseball left to be played, and there’s a lot left to learn about this team.

Still, this is so clearly a different Mets group from the one fans had grown accustomed to, even the littlest changes seem worth grabbing onto.

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Around the League 🚩

• Former Met Dominic Smith hit a walk-off grand slam for the Braves to beat the Royals, 6-2 (MLB.com)

• Rangers righty Jacob deGrom was scratched from his first start of the season with neck stiffness (Dallas Morning News)

• Dylan Cease tallied 12 strikeouts over 5.1 innings in his Blue Jays debut (MLB.com)

• Aaron Boone became the seventh manager in Yankees franchise history to record 700 wins with a sweep of the Giants in the season-opening series (MLB.com)

• Munetaka Murakami hit his second homer in as many games, providing Chicago’s only run as the White Sox fell to the Brewers, 6-1 (MLB.com)

• Tatsuya Imai will make his MLB debut for the Astros today