Brett Davis-USA TODAY Sports

There were a few positives to take from the Mets’ tough series loss to the Braves this week. Not many but a few. You can count Brett Baty‘s first home run in his first major league at-bat as one, and you can also put a solid start from Max Scherzer in there too. But let’s not also forget about Mark Canha having himself a big series.

In a four-game series where the Mets were shutout once and limited to two or fewer runs in two games, Canha was pretty productive at the plate and he provided the kind of gritty and tough at-bats that was otherwise lacking from the Mets lineup against a Braves pitching staff that pretty much had it all their way in Atlanta.

Canha finished this series with five hits, four doubles, one home run, and three RBI, which is impressive production in just a four-game sample size. Over the last seven days, the veteran outfielder is slashing .412/.450/.824/.1.274 with seven hits, four doubles, and five RBI. That’s the definition of getting it done at the plate.

He hit a double in a 13-1 blowout loss in the first game of this series – doing more than most of his teammates that night – and he had a real strong finish to the series. On Wednesday, in a big 9-7 win for the Mets, Canha went 2-for-3 with two doubles and an RBI. The highlight was an impressively-hit double down the left field line into the corner to score Jeff McNeil and make it a 5-1 game in the top of the sixth inning.

It was a huge hit at a critical point in the game and Canha would deliver more clutch hitting on Thursday night. While the Mets dropped the final game of the series to lose a series to an NL team for the first time this season, the 33-year-old produced his most impressive moment of the entire four-game set.

With one runner on base and nobody out in the top of the fifth inning with the Braves leading 2-0, Canha stepped up to the plate looking to shift the momentum back in the Mets’ direction. He did just that with an incredible at-bat as he went toe-to-toe with Atlanta starter Max Fried, eventually winning the chess match to blast a two-run home run to tie the game up. It was an absolute moonshot that traveled 412 feet and it came after an epic eight-pitch at-bat that lasted for over five minutes. It is the kind of at-bat that should be shown to every aspiring big leaguer up and down the country. Canha was able to grind down Fried, drive up his pitch count at a critical point in the game and then come up in the clutch in the biggest way possible.

Granted, it didn’t count for much in the end as the Mets lost the series, but Canha proved why he’s such a critical piece in this lineup with his ability to produce tough at-bats, wear the opposing pitcher down and get on base. He’s been able to produce clutch hitting too when his team has needed it. Hitting .272/.372/.392 on the year with eight homers, 15 doubles, and 42 RBI, Canha doesn’t attract the headlines that some of his more high-profile teammates do, but he’s exactly the type of non-flashy, middle-of-the-order hitter that this team has long needed. Just as he showed in this series.