Mark

Vientos

There doesn’t appear to be anything wrong physically with the 25-year-old slugger, it’s just a routine night off. Francisco Alvarez will slide into the designated hitter spot in the Mets’ lineup while Luis Torrens will start behind the dish and bat ninth against Marlins’ right-hander Sandy Alcantara.

Vientos was called out by the first base ump on a borderline check swing call to end the sixth and then was tossed by the home plate ump for slamming his bat into the ground, even though he held on to the bat and didn’t toss it. It’s not the kind of thing that typically gets one ejected. Vientos was serving as a DH today, so the Mets didn’t have to immediately replace him.

Vientos will get a breather after scuffling over the last handful of games for the Mets. The 25-year-old will take a seat with Starling Marte hitting fifth as the designated hitter and Brett Baty the starting third baseman.

Vientos hit a 412-foot homer off David Robertson. That ball left his bat at 110 mph, and he also had a strong 103-mph lineout in the eighth. Vientos is batting .277/.329/.582 with 11 homers in 39 games during the second half.

Vientos officially has his swagger back. He hit his long ball an impressive 427 feet to the opposite field – the fifth furthest opposite field homer by any player this season. Despite a horrific first half where he lost most of his playing time, he’s now up to 16 homers on the season with a .739 OPS. If he stays as hot as he’s been over the past month, he may wind up getting close to matching his preseason projections.

Vientos’ only hit of the day left the yard as he took Edward Cabrera deep for a three-run blast in the third inning. The 25-year-old slugger is up to 15 homers and 53 RBI while hitting .246/.293/.439 across 375 plate appearances.

Does Vientos have his swagger back? With a clutch, two-out, run-scoring single in the fifth inning and two-run homer to break this game open in the seventh it sure feels like he’s back to being the trustworthy run producer we saw last season. He has six home runs to go along with a 1.035 OPS over his last 15 games and is undoubtedly one of the hottest hitters in the league at the moment.

The homers were both projected at 414 feet. He now has four during a little six-game hitting streak that’s raised his OPS from .633 to 688. We wouldn’t get too excited just yet, but it’ll definitely keep him in the lineup through next week.

McNeil came off the bench to pinch-hit during Thursday’s series finale against the Nationals, but he’s going to get some additional time off to rest a lingering shoulder issue that’s been bothering him for the past week. It’ll be Brett Baty sliding over to cover second base with Mark Vientos handling the hot corner for the third straight contest.

McNeil takes a seat as he continues to battle some lingering shoulder soreness that has been bothering him since last week. He’s day-to-day heading into Friday’s series opener against Atlanta. It’ll be Brett Baty sliding over to cover second base with Mark Vientos handling the hot corner.