Mark Vientos happy to have navigated trade winds, making it home with Mets
The Mets' Mark Vientos, right, celebrates with teammates Jeff McNeil and Brandon Nimmo after hitting a grand slam during the fifth inning of a game against the San Diego Padres on Monday in San Diego. Credit: AP/Gregory Bull
Scattered throughout social media posts and radio airwaves, the trade rumors and hypotheticals surrounding Mark Vientos were impossible to ignore.
But when the MLB trade deadline officially passed on Thursday, Vientos remained a Met. He started at third base and batted sixth against the Giants at Citi Field on Friday night.
What were the past few days like for him?
“They had you on the seat of your chair,” Vientos told Newsday. “But it’s fun, man. It’s fun. This is stuff that you dream about as a little kid, is just going through stuff like this and playing at the major-league level.
“But I’m glad I’m here with the boys and the team, and we can compete to win it all.”
As the clock hit 6:01 p.m. Thursday, Vientos could take a deep breath.
“A sigh of relief, of course,” he said. “It was just a lot of emotions, a lot of things going on. But glad it worked out.”
Vientos entered Friday with a .234/.285/.372 slash line, seven home runs and 31 RBIs in 76 games this season. He spent 24 days on the injured list with a right hamstring strain in June and has 70 starts — 48 at third, 21 at designated hitter and one at first.
He was one of the stars during the Mets’ run to the National League Championship Series last fall, posting a .327/.362/.636 slash line with five homers and 14 RBIs in 13 postseason games.
Vientos, 25, has been with the Mets’ organization since they drafted him in the second round in 2017. As he was going through the ups and downs of the deadline, that certainly was at the front of his mind.
“I think that’s the biggest thing,” he said. “All I know is the Mets, and I’ve been here for eight years. It was the thought of being somewhere else that was a little nerve-wracking, for sure.”
Upbeat updates
On Wednesday, Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said the Mets “dodged a bullet” with Juan Soto’s foot injury.
Soto exited in the fourth inning of the Mets’ 7-1 loss in San Diego on Tuesday after fouling a ball off his left foot. He missed Wednesday’s 5-0 loss to the Padres but was back in the lineup Friday, batting third and starting in rightfield.
“We knew after the game in San Diego the other day that I had a player,” Mendoza said. “I checked with him yesterday, no issues. So he’s good to go.”
Catcher Francisco Alvarez, who was struck on the side of the mask with a foul ball on Wednesday and ultimately was removed from the game, did not start Friday but was considered available.
“Came in yesterday, again, passed all the protocols and all the tests,” Mendoza said. “We want to make sure that he goes through all the baseball activities today, and he should be a player for us. But we wanted to give him an extra day and making sure he moves around and catches a pen, does all the defensive drills, takes BP and see what the response is.”
Ben Dickson is Newsday Sports' general assignment reporter. He joined Newsday’s high school sports staff in 2023 after graduating from Maryland, where he covered several of the Terrapins' teams.
