NEW YORK — The day dawned bright in Queens.
March openers at Citi Field can be hazardous, home to hoodies under jerseys and ponchos in the stands. The Mets haven’t opened the season at home often as of late, and it’s usually come a day later than scheduled.
But a long and unusually cold winter in New York broke in time for a perfect spring day Thursday. You felt good in the sun for a 67-degree first pitch, and you felt better three hours and eight minutes later for the last pitch of the Mets’ 11-7 win over the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Opening Day is about first impressions more than lasting ones, but the Mets sure hope this first impression endures for a while. Their overhauled offense tortured Pittsburgh’s pitchers all day, starting with reigning Cy Young winner Paul Skenes. They worked counts and put the ball in play and tacked on in a way they seldom did last season.
“That,” Brett Baty said, “was a really fun game.”
Luis Robert was the pivot.
He was the pivot point in Carlos Mendoza’s lineup. The manager had known for months how he’d structure his first four hitters; after that, though, he could have turned to Marcus Semien or Brett Baty or Francisco Alvarez. Instead, for Opening Day, he tabbed Robert there, despite back-to-back subpar offensive seasons, because of what Robert had been in the spring and what he could be to the lineup.
He was the pivot point in Thursday’s first inning. Coming to the plate with two on, one out and the Mets down a run, Robert waved weakly at Skenes’ first-pitch slider — the first swing-and-miss Skenes registered on the day. But after falling behind 1-2, Robert fouled off three straight pitches, took a ball, fouled off another, and took two more outside the strike zone. The 10-pitch walk loaded the bases, passed the baton to Baty and further ran up Skenes’ pitch count, from 19 to 29, without adding an out.
“The whole inning was the Luis Robert at-bat,” Mendoza said. “For him to get to 3-2 and lay off that sweeper, hell of a job there.”
Robert’s plate appearance was one of five that lasted at least seven pitches for the Mets on Thursday — each one from a different hitter. New York made Pittsburgh throw 192 pitches in eight innings. That’s more pitches per inning than the Mets saw in any game last season.
“That’s what we harp on,” Baty said. “We’re a complete lineup. If we wear that pitcher down, somebody in the lineup is going to get a mistake and do some damage with it.”
On Thursday, Baty was the guy who made Skenes and the Pirates pay, with some help from Pittsburgh’s defense. Stepping up after Robert’s walk loaded the bases, Baty laced a changeup to center field that converted shortstop Oneil Cruz misjudged into a three-run triple. Baty screamed while sliding into third base.
On the next pitch, Cruz lost Marcus Semien’s pop-up in the sun, playing it into an RBI double. Two batters later, Pirates manager Don Kelly took the ball from Skenes, 37 pitches and two outs into his Cy Young defense.
“I’m not as upset about this, for me personally, as people would probably think,” Skenes said afterward. “Because they did a really good job. I’ll certainly tip my cap to them.”
Plate appearances like that in innings like that are why Robert feels like the pivotal piece for this Mets team. He’s a plus defender at a premium position. When right at the plate, he’s a middle-of-the-order masher who once hit 38 home runs in a season. And even in another disappointing year in 2025, he made significant and encouraging strides with his strikeout and walk rates.
He added a two-out, two-strike RBI single in the fourth, and he beat out an infield knock that scored a run in the fifth.
Sketch out what could propel the Mets to the postseason, to the top of the National League East, to contending for the pennant the way they did two seasons ago, and Robert’s aligning reality with his potential plays a big role.
Robert wasn’t the only new face to impress. Carson Benge checked all the major boxes in his major-league debut: first game, first hit, first homer, first steal, first curtain call, first brush with the weird energy of Citi Field when a dead bird thudded on the turf near him in right field.
“Everything and more,” Benge said of his big-league debut. “You really can’t top it.”
Like Robert and Benge, Jorge Polanco reached base three times. Semien had two hits, even if neither was struck forcefully. Bo Bichette lifted a two-strike sacrifice fly off Skenes to get the Mets on the board in the first, and even a fifth-inning strikeout required 13 pitches.
“That’s the sign of a good offensive team, when you get contributions one through nine,” Mendoza said. “To see it out of the gate against one of the best pitchers in the league, it says we’ve got some dangerous guys.”
“I asked them before the game for some runs, but damn, that was crazy,” said Freddy Peralta, who allowed four runs in five innings in picking up the win.
The sun won’t be this bright straight through summer. For Game 2 on Saturday, the high is supposed to be 40 degrees. The Mets’ historical dominance on Opening Day — they are 42-15 since 1970 — has so often been misleading. They hope they’ve built a more rigorous and more replicable blueprint this time around, less reliant on an ace in Game 1 than a lineup that wears them down for all 162.
It’s just a first impression. But it was a bright one nonetheless.
“It gives you a lot of optimism,” Mendoza said, “while also understanding there are 162 games and that many things happen, right?”