MILWAUKEE — Arguably the biggest home run in regular-season Mets history would not have meant nearly as much if not for the at-bat before.
Francisco Lindor’s go-ahead, season-changing, two-run home run in Atlanta on Monday only was a go-ahead home run because there was a runner on base.
At a moment when the Mets were desperate for baserunners and down one run, it was Starling Marte who sent a single into left and could jog around the bases one pitch later.
And there was Marte again in Game 3 of the wild-card series coming through with a two-out single in the ninth to drive in an insurance run in the Mets’ 4-2 win over the Brewers.
A side benefit to the Mets’ late-season run that brought them to the postseason was Marte, an aging outfielder who often has looked like an aging outfielder the past two seasons, looking instead like himself.
“I think this is probably the best version of Marte that we’ve seen since he got hurt,” manager Carlos Mendoza said before Marte’s latest big hit.
Marte’s offense has come alive at the right time, not just for the 2024 Mets, who have ridden the hot hitter and started him all three games of the wild-card series, but for the 2025 Mets.
There is more hope the club will have a contributor next year rather than a to-be 36-year-old on his last legs.
In what will be the final year of his contract, Marte is due to make $20.75 million next season.
Marte probably will not be the All-Star he was in his first season in Queens in 2022, but the Mets would gladly accept the same type of contact-hitting savant with strong stolen-base skills that has been on display recently.
In the postseason-clincher against the Braves, Marte smacked a pair of singles and scored two of the Mets’ eight runs.
In the first two playoff games against the Brewers, he lived on base (with a .500 OBP), drilled a sacrifice fly, stole a base and had a home run robbed by Jackson Chourio’s glove without striking out once.
This is the Marte the Mets signed for four years and $78 million. There were concerns whether he would ever be seen again.
After Marte’s excellent first season with the Mets, the injuries began.
He underwent double groin surgery before the 2023 campaign, which hampered him all year and led to an early shutdown after just 86 mostly ineffective games.
This year, when he appeared to take a step back defensively, including a knee bone bruise that sidelined him for about two months from June to August.
After middling results in his first few weeks in September, Marte has rebounded.
He said his confidence did not waver, believing he could still be the same type of player he typically has been through 13 major league seasons.
“I think first, when you get hit with a lower-body injury, you may feel like you may be a little bit more limited to being able to do what you want to do, but I listened to the trainers,” Marte, who added that he feels “really good,” said through interpreter Alan Suriel. “I was able to recover the right way.”
