Carlos Mendoza called Luis Robert Jr.’s 10-pitch walk the biggest at-bat in what turned out to be the Mets’ rather stunning first-inning takedown of Paul Skenes, the best and most imposing pitcher in the National League.
And afterward, the manager was practically giggling as he tried to explain it.
“I mean, historically he’s been chaser, right?” Mendoza said. “We know he’s going to chase. But then you watch that at-bat. For him to lay off that 3-2 breaking ball…for me, that whole inning was about that Luis Robert at-bat.”
As it turned out, Robert Jr.’s unexpected plate discipline loaded the bases and set the table for the Brett Baty triple – albeit, thanks to a misplay by Oneil Cruz – that led to Skenes’ first-inning knockout and eventually a feel-good 11-7 Opening Day win over the Pittsburgh Pirates at Citi Field.
It was a win that featured the Mets’ new-look offense that prioritizes making contact, the deliberate result of David Stearns desire to, as he said during spring training, “have more competitive at-bats 1-through-9” in the lineup.
The first-day results say the plan could work wonders for an offense that has been too feast-or-famine in recent years, and way too inconsistent with runners in scoring position.
Yet not even the Stearns would have dreamed of his team giving Skenes the earliest knockout of his career. And though the NL Cy Young winner’s defense was partly to blame, tough at-bats by the Mets’ hitters led to long counts that pushed his pitch count to 37, at which point Pirates’ manager Don Kelly decided not to push his young superstar too far on Opening Day.
“He was missing arm side and he was trying to make us chase,” said Mendoza. “We controlled the strike zone. We executed the game plan. We were going to make him come to us – and be aggressive if we get pitches to hit.”
From the offseason blueprint to the ballfield. At least on Day One.
New York Mets center fielder Luis Robert Jr. (88) catches a ball hit by Pittsburgh Pirates shortstop Jared Triolo (not shown), Thursday, March 26, 2026. / © Kevin R. Wexler-NorthJersey.com / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
Yet the weird part is Robert Jr. wasn’t really part of that blueprint. The Mets gambled on him in a trade with the Chicago White Sox, willing to take on his $20 million salary this season, because of his elite athleticism, both as a center fielder and a hitter, and the hope that he could stay healthy and deliver on the hit tool that still makes scouts drool.
But suffice it to say, nobody ever accused Robert Jr. of being a grinder at the plate.
Indeed, as Mendoza referenced, Robert Jr. has been the definition of a chaser throughout his career. Even during his All-Star season in 2023, when he hit .264 with 38 home runs, he had a whopping 172 strikeouts and ranked in the bottom third percentile among all hitters in chasing pitches out of the strike zone, according to MLB Statcast.
One year earlier, in 2022, he ranked in the bottom one percent. The very bottom. By 2025, he’d improved a bit but still ranked in the bottom 20th percentile, which means that, at least statistically, Robert should have had little to no chance of winning an at-bat like the one against Skenes on Thursday, from falling behind 1-2 in the count to working out such a consequential walk.
Or as a scout I reached out to after the Mets’ win said:
“At 1-2, I thought there was a 90 percent chance Skenes would strike him out. Then, honestly, as he was fouling off tough pitches and taking sliders off the plate, I almost couldn’t believe it was the same guy I watched in Chicago.”
So then logic would tell you the 10-pitch walk was just some sort of happy accident for the Mets.
To that point, according to Sports Info Solutions, the 10-pitch walk was tied for Robert’s longest at-bat in his last three seasons, along with one in 2025 against Taijuan Walker, who, no offense, is hardly Paul Skenes.
Ok, but what if this is some new-and-improved version of Robert Jr.? He did go 2-for-4 in addition to the walk on Thursday, even if one of his two singles was a slow roller in the infield.
More significantly, Robert Jr. is still only 28, after all, and theoretically younger than that, baseball-wise, considering all the time he’s missed due to injuries during his career, only once playing more than 110 games in a season.
In addition, there has been much speculation from people around baseball, even going back to last season when the Mets were interested in him at the trade deadline, that he’d been worn down by years of losing with the White Sox and even somewhat undeveloped in an organization considered lacking in modern analytics/technology.
Stearns himself said after trading for him, “We’ve all seen it before. Sometimes guys just need a change of scenery to bring out the best him.” Here’s how the scout translated that quote when I read it to him Thursday:
“That’s a nice way of saying he thinks the White Sox weren’t equipped to get the most out of Robert’s talent,” he said. “And he might be right about that. We’re talking mostly about one at-bat against a great pitcher but it’s something that you wouldn’t think was possible unless the guy has taken to whatever the Mets may have been working with him on this spring.”
Mendoza, for one, wants to believe that such work in spring training is already beginning to pay dividends.
“I give credit to him and the coaches,” said the manager. “Behind the scenes, they were working with him on laying off tough pitches and doing damage with the pitches he can handle. I think you saw some of that in that walk.”
It opened some eyes among his teammates as well.
“That was super impressive,” Bo Bichette said. “To get to 1-2 against a guy like that, and then work the count to 3-2, that’s not easy to do. Then to lay off a slider on 3-2…you’ve got 100 (mph) in the back of your mind, and you also want to drive in a run there…to wind up taking the walk is so impressive.”
So if it’s more than a happy accident, well, Robert could be an X-factor that gives the Mets a significant power dimension in the No. 5 spot, in addition to the contact, plate discipline, and consistency in RBI spots they want to be their identity.
“We know how talented he is,” was the way Mendoza put it. “We know what that could mean for us.”
To which the scout added: “Keeping him off the injured list is a big part of it, but if the Mets get a better version of Robert, especially with his approach and discipline, that could be a deep and dangerous lineup.”
At least for one day, a first-inning TKO of the best pitcher in the National League was proof of that.
Read the full article here
