who has struggled badly<\/a> on both sides of the ball, looking to recapture at least the power he displayed two years ago, which seems to be more and more of a distant memory.<\/p>\nMets third baseman Mark Vientos (27) falls off the bag, allowing a batter on during the ninth inning when the New York Mets played the Minnesota Twins on Wednesday, April 22, 2026. Robert Sabo for NY Post<\/p>\n
Altogether, they have the fourth-worst OPS at the position this season (.581), a year after Pete Alonso helped them to the second-best OPS in the majors (.861).<\/p>\n
Neither has stood out defensively, either.<\/p>\n
And according to FanGraphs, the group has the second-lowest WAR (-0.5).<\/p>\n
Asked about the spot before Wednesday\u2019s game against Washington at Citi Field, Carlos Mendoza said the duo of Baty and Vientos has \u201chandled the position fine,\u201d adding Vientos has been OK defensively.<\/p>\n
But the manager acknowledged: \u201cOffensively, we expect more.\u201d<\/p>\n
In fairness, the lack of production has been a failure of almost the entire lineup and not just at first base.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s felt there especially, given the importance in the lineup, and because they had such a consistent threat at first as long as Alonso was around.<\/p>\n
Jorge Polanco (11) throws out Pittsburgh Pirates first baseman Ryan O\u2019Hearn at first base during the seventh inning of a baseball game. AP<\/p>\n
\u201cThey took a strength and made it a weakness,\u2019\u2019 one National League scout said. \u201cI think Baty can hit, but he shouldn\u2019t be at first base. If they had just kept him at third, where he looked comfortable last year, I think he would have come on at the plate. But they\u2019re making it harder on him, all to get another guy who\u2019s out of position [former shortstop Bo Bichette] into the lineup.\u201d<\/p>\n
With Polanco nursing both a right wrist contusion and Achilles discomfort \u2014 and considered week to week by David Stearns \u2014 the Mets figure to go with Baty and Vientos.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe signed Polanco to play there and he\u2019s had health issues,\u2019\u2019 Mendoza said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Pete Alonso of the Baltimore Orioles blows on his finger gun as he rounds the bases after hitting a two-run home run. Getty Images<\/p>\n
Asked who else could play first base, Mendoza said MJ Melendez was capable of seeing time there, as well as Luis Torrens in an emergency.<\/p>\n
Ryan Clifford, ranked the organization\u2019s fourth-best prospect according to MLB Pipeline, is splitting time between first base and the corner outfield spots at Triple-A Syracuse and has five homers in his previous nine games.<\/p>\n
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The 22-year-old doesn\u2019t figure to be the answer, at least in the short term.<\/p>\n
And with Francisco Lindor\u2019s absence \u2014 out indefinitely with a strained left calf \u2014 decimating the offense, the hole at first base looks even worse.<\/p>\n
Mets third baseman Brett Baty (7) fields a throw during the first inning when the New York Mets played the Pittsburgh Pirates. Robert Sabo for NY Post<\/p>\n
The only bright spot for the Mets, if you want to call it that, is that Alonso still hasn\u2019t begun to hit consistently in Baltimore after he left Queens for a five-year, $155 million contract.<\/p>\n
That won\u2019t help the Mets get out of their current predicament, and they have little choice but to keep rolling with Baty and Vientos.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Once the Mets offseason plan became clear and through spring training, a key question they faced was how…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":214923,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[35578,38995,35580,20,9,11,320,10,319],"class_list":["post-214922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-brett-baty","tag-jorge-polanco","tag-mark-vientos","tag-mlb","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-mets","tag-new-york-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214922\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/214923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}