Mets' Luis Torrens 'finally' hits first home run of season as part of big night

Luis Torrens had gone 101 at-bats to begin the regular season without a home run this season, but he unloaded a 413-foot blast to straightaway center field for a two-run shot in his 102nd at-bat that put the Mets up 4-0 against the San Diego Padres on Friday night.

Although Torrens isn’t necessarily a power hitter, he’s a backup catcher after all, he does have some pop, even hitting 15 homers one year as the everyday catcher for the Seattle Mariners in 2021.

In his third season in New York Torrens has been playing regularly as of late with Francisco Alvarez on the IL recovering from a meniscus tear in his right knee. The veteran has always been a defensive whiz behind the plate, but he’s had some big hits this year for the Mets — none bigger, or at least farther, than Friday’s home run.

“Finally I got my first homer,” he said after the 5-0 win. “It’s always good when you’re available to help the team win games and tonight was one of those times.”

Not only did Torrens go deep for the first time this year, he also had a double, drove in two and scored two all from the No. 9 spot in the lineup. He also caught Christian Scott‘s 5.2 scoreless innings as well as the following 3.1 scoreless innings from the bullpen.

“It was good to see the offense, especially Luis, have a really good game there,” said manager Carlos Mendoza. “Not easy to hit that ball to dead center on a night like that in San Diego. Overall, I thought we played a pretty good game.”

As for Scott’s performance, Torrens attributes the great start to executing their game plan against the Padres who entered the game losers of nine of their past 10 games and an offense that has been reeling.

“Tonight was a great example of execution of a game plan,” Torrens said of Scott. “We attacked the zone, threw all the pitches.”

Scott’s fastball, in particular, had San Diego uncomfortable all night and he used it to set up his other pitches like the sweeper, cutter and changeup.

“I thought I did a good job with my fastball in the strike zone,” Scott said. “I thought LT called a great game. I didn’t have my best stuff today but [just to] go out there and compete with the fastball and fastball location was huge for me today and I thought the defense played great, too.”

“He kinda set the tone there, attacking hitters,” Mendoza added. “I like how he moved the fastball around the plate. The sweeper was a good pitch for him.”

Scott has been on an incredible stretch recently, allowing one earned run over his last three starts and lowering his ERA to 2.50. But Friday’s gem was the first of the last three starts that Torrens has behind the plate.

In fact, entering Friday, the right-hander owned a 5.40 ERA in six starts with Torrens, the worst mark with any catcher but also the most starts with any catcher. With Torrens an important part of the team, it’s imperative he and Scott get on the same page and it looked like on Friday they were finally able to do that.

“He was able to command pretty much all of his pitches and he’s been able to attack the zone kind of with the same type of game plan that we’ve prepared with,” Torrens said. “But also he’s been able to just prove the type of pitcher that he is.”

“He’s a really nice guy to catch,” Torrens added. “He’s easy and the fastball is different and when he’s [able] to throw it for strikes it’s special.”