Laura Albanese: Carson Benge shows knack for overcoming slumps
Mets rightfielder Carson Benge follows through on an RBI single against the Cincinnati Reds during the seventh inning at Citi Field on Wednesday. Credit: Brad Penner
On the 17th day, the Mets finally rested.
And oh, what a 16-day stretch it was.
Thursday marked this snakebitten team’s first day off in well over two weeks, and it couldn’t have come soon enough. Remarkably, the Mets went .500 in that stretch, though the five-game losing streak toward the tail end made it feel so much worse. During that time, they lost Clay Holmes, Francisco Alvarez and Tyrone Taylor to significant injuries — joining the legion of fallen — and witnessed troubling performances by David Peterson, Nolan McLean and Devin Williams, to name a few.
But in the spirit of rest — and because it’s still only May and no one wants to spend the next four months mired in doom and gloom — there were at least some mildly encouraging developments, and you saw them come to the fore in the Mets’ 4-2 win over the Reds on Wednesday.
While the Mets continue to feature one of the worst offenses in baseball, you can’t help but notice the outliers and what this could mean for the franchise’s future. And in that, you need look no further than the outfield duo of Juan Soto and Carson Benge.
Soto, still dealing with wrist discomfort that flares up when he swings and misses, apparently has chosen to respond to this personal affront by swinging and hitting the ball very, very far. He has eight homers in his last 12 games, including a jaw-dropping 449-foot bomb against Eury Perez and the Marlins last weekend off a 99.8-mph heater.
“He’s locked in,” manager Carlos Mendoza said. “He’s one of the best, if not the best, at what he does.”
For all of Soto’s many feats, though, there’s still an expectation of excellence, so while his accomplishments are significant, they’re also not hugely surprising.
Benge, stuck in a slump that forced his hand (he shaved his mustache to change his luck), contributed two RBI singles Wednesday and is putting together quality at-bats that speak to his ability to adapt to the league. His fifth-inning hit snapped a 1-for-23 slump that had been preceded by strong returns — a .413 average in 10 games spanning May 10-20.
There are a few reasons why that’s encouraging: Unlike Soto, Benge isn’t a known quantity, and his inexperience naturally makes slumps harder to break.
It’s also the repetition of a pattern. Benge started off slowly — after April 1, his batting average didn’t crack .200 until May 6 — but “the one thing that I like about him is you can never really tell whether he’s 0-for-8 the past couple of games or he’s just coming off a couple of games where he either hit a walk-off or had a game like this,” Mendoza said. “He’s going to show up the next day and he’s going to be the same person and he’s going to give you his best.”
Added Soto: “He’s always aggressive and he has a really good swing and he knows it.”
Benge also is having more success catching up to balls up in the zone, an area in which he struggled early in the season. Mind you, he’s also adjusting to batting leadoff.
“I’m just trying to stay short, put it in play, not trying to do too much with them,” Benge said. “And things have been working out . . . You just fight — fight for every pitch and not give them anything. [I] try to be a tough out. That’s all you can do.”
Either way, Benge is quickly proving that he belongs on this stage, even if his development isn’t linear.
A.J. Ewing, experiencing growing pains of his own, also has a skill set that seems primed to put him in a similar category — speed, defense and bat-to-ball skills that, with honing, can eliminate the threat of prolonged slumps. Ewing made two acrobatic catches in the outfield on Wednesday, changing the tenor of a game in which the Reds stranded 17.
And though it may be cold comfort to think about the future when the team is 10 games under .500, you can’t deny that the outfield picture looks good. Barring an opt-out that can’t be exercised until 2030, Soto is here to stay, and the additions of Benge and Ewing are reason to be excited about the outfield for years to come. It could be a reason to be excited about the outfield of today, if only the rest of the team could find some semblance of a rhythm.
“The guys are going to show up,” Mendoza said, specifically referencing Benge and Ewing. “There are smiles on their faces. They’re on a mission. They’re coming into work. They’re asking good questions. You see them pregame doing their outfield work, taking BP, going over pitchers . . . It’s been pretty impressive how steady those guys are.”
Impressive, too, that this could be just the beginning.
Laura Albanese is the Mets beat writer for Newsday. She's been covering MLB since 2014 after starting at Newsday as an intern seven years earlier.
