Mets’ Offense Puts On a Show on Opening Day

In an Opening Day showdown against the Pittsburgh Pirates that seemed destined to become a pitcher’s duel between Freddy Peralta and Paul Skenes, the New York Mets made it a quick day at the office for the reigning NL Cy Young Award winner.

After Peralta gave up two earned runs in the top of the first inning on a Brandon Lowe home run, New York came up to bat in the bottom half of the frame just looking to battle against Skenes and hopefully push a few runners across the plate over the course of his outing. What transpired, however, was a surprise to just about everyone.

Francisco Lindor opened the Mets’ offensive festivities with a walk before Juan Soto dumped a single into right center, allowing the former to go from first to third. In his first plate appearance for New York, Bo Bichette plated Lindor with a sacrifice fly down the right field line to make it 2-1.

The Mets got plenty of help from Pirates center fielder Oneil Cruz from that point forward, as he let a Brett Baty line drive carry over his head, thus emptying the bases and providing New York with a 4-2 lead. Then, on a routine fly ball off the bat of Marcus Semien, Cruz appeared to lose the ball in the sun and allowed it to drop, scoring Baty and making it 5-2.

Skenes was pulled at 37 pitches after recording just two outs, marking the shortest start of his career up to this point, and the Mets didn’t stop from there.

Luis Robert Jr. got in on the action with an RBI single in the fourth inning, and New York put up a three-spot to grow its lead to 9-4 in the fifth.

Carson Benge, in his big-league debut, and Francisco Alvarez went back-to-back with solo shots in the sixth inning, which served as the final touches on the Mets’ 11-7 victory at Citi Field.

Lindor and Bichette were the only players to finish without a hit for New York, but the former still reached base three times while the latter had his aforementioned sac fly. The club as a whole worked strong at-bats throughout the entire contest, drawing a total of nine walks and forcing Pittsburgh to throw 192 pitches.

Alvarez in particular had a promising showing even outside of his second-deck blast to left field, recording three batted balls of at least 95 mph, which he did on just four occasions in 2025, per MMO’s Mike Mayer.

Mayer also noted that Opening Day represented the ninth time over the last decade that New York walked nine times and had 11 hits in a single game, a feat the team didn’t accomplish in 2025.

It’s hard to imagine a more encouraging start to the season for the Mets at the plate with their new-look lineup, and they’ll look to sustain that momentum over a larger sample size moving forward.

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