WASHINGTON, D.C. -- It was nine, maybe 10 years ago that Robinson Cano recalled last pushing a bunt down the third base line to beat the shift.
"It was against the Red Sox," Cano said at his locker late Thursday night, "when I was with the Yankees. They were shifted over. I bunted it hard enough down the third-base line, past (Will) Middlebrooks for a double."
Dramatic pause. Cano smiled.
"I was fast then."
With that he got the laugh he was looking for from reporters. Cano was never fast, of course, and teams didn’t often shift against him because he’s always been a good opposite-field hitter. When they tried it on occasion, though, like most big leaguers he preferred to swing away and try and do damage instead.
But this is an older Cano. Wiser, too, you’d hope, as he comes back from missing all of 2021, the result of a second suspension for using PEDs. He wants to prove he can still play at age 39, maybe even be a leader again, and with that in mind he wanted to not only get on base but make a statement by bunting for a base hit.
"Whatever it takes," he said. "It’s not about putting up individual numbers, it’s about finding a way to win. That’s what I was thinking, get something started because we’ve got a lot of good hitters on this team and we can turn that into something."
In the 5-1 season-opening win over the Nationals that’s exactly what the Mets did, stringing together some good at-bats to produce two-run rallies in both the fifth and sixth innings.
There were no fireworks, no home runs. Yet for any Mets fans who suffered through the 2021 season waiting endlessly for the offense to deliver, watching these rather pedestrian rallies may well have been prayers answered that this year will be different.
After all, the rallies were built on doing the little things well, or just call it situational hitting if you prefer. Either way it’s something the Mets did poorly last year, repeatedly failing in the clutch with runners on base.
Yet on Thursday you saw Cano lead off an inning with that bunt, then Mark Canha lay off some tough sliders from Patrick Corbin to draw a walk, then Jeff McNeil take a good, two-strike approach to get his bat on the ball and find a hole for a single through the left side of the infield.
That all led to two runs scoring with the bases loaded, first when James McCann was hit on the ankle by a pitch, then when Starling Marte pulled a ground ball down the line. It was only a fielder’s choice in the scorebook, thanks to a force-out at third, but it was the type of productive out that, again, was so often missing from the Mets’ playbook a year ago.
A suspended Cano watched the 2021 team struggle to deliver in the clutch, and he was quick to say it will be different this season.
"For sure," he said. "We’ve got a lot of guys this year who know how to play the game, who know how to move a runner over and how to get guys in from second base. We have guys who know how to win games."
In some ways, in fact, these were the types of rallies the Mets’ brass had in mind when it signed three good, contact-hitting free agents, Marte, Eduardo Escobar, and Canha.
Cano thinks Marte, in particular, with his speed and ability to generate offense from the leadoff spot will be a difference-maker.
"Just about every championship team has a true leadoff hitter and Marte can be that guy for us," Cano said. "He can make things happen. That’s who we can be offensively. We have a team where it can be a different guy every day who does something to win a game."
If all goes as planned, then, this Mets team may develop an identity not as a splashy offensive team but perhaps an efficient one.
"You’re going to have to grind against our lineup," manager Buck Showalter said. "We’ve got a length. A lot of good hitters."
So many that McNeil batted eighth, perhaps a demotion of sorts personally for a guy who was being touted not so long ago as a future batting champion. But after an off-year, he’ll have to earn his way back toward the top of the lineup. And last night was a nice step in that direction, as he delivered one single that loaded the bases and another that drove in a run.
McNeil also found himself in left field, due to Brandon Nimmo’s neck injury, after spending spring training almost entirely at second base, and that versatility is another feature of this team Showalter and the Mets’ front office wants to utilize to full advantage.
"We talked a lot about the versatility here," Showalter said. "The way we can move a guy when a Nimmo is out. We don’t have the sky is falling (mentality). Just move on, have guys capable of playing different places, and have experience at it, too."
In some ways it’s an ideal team for Showalter’s well-documented baseball acumen, as he can move the chess pieces around the board to perhaps get the most out of them collectively.
That too is what Cano sees as crucial to the Mets’ success in 2022. He’s already a big Showalter fan.
"I’ve been in the game a long time," he said, "and it’s easier when you have a manager who really knows the game. He doesn’t miss anything. He knows what’s important, what’s really going to happen in the game. That’s what a great manager does."
Whatever it takes, from the manager and the players. That was Cano’s takeaway from the first of 162 games, and while the old man of the ballclub still has a lot to do to earn the acceptance of the fans after his PED suspension, he walked the walk on Thursday night.
Simply put, his willingness to drop down a bunt was just what the Mets needed to set an Opening Night win in motion.
