It’s no secret that Amed Rosario‘s defense at shortstop has been a disappointment since the day he stepped foot on a major league field. Rosario has been tirelessly working on improving with Mets third base coach Gary DiSarcina, and the two plays he made on Thursday made it look like it’s starting to pay off.

Before we get into just those two plays, I should note that Rosario’s defense in-general has looked better over the two months (only -2 DRS, compared to -13 DRS in previous span this year). He’s had fewer mental lapses in that time as well. After making seven errors in March/April, he cut that number to three in May, two in June, and none so far in the month of July.

Rosario made this nice play on the backhand to help out Jacob deGrom early in his outing.

Later in the game, Rosario would make a great diving play to his left and then flip to Robinson Cano for the force out at second.

The improvement for Rosario goes beyond his defense as well. Over his last 31 games, Amed Rosario is hitting .314/.362/.512 while striking out only 13.8 of the time. That span has improve his overall 2019 slash line to a respectable .271/.312/.438 in 406 plate appearances.