Vincent Carchietta-USA TODAY Sports

After a hot start to the early season, Mark Canha has struggled of late, and was coincidentally out of the lineup for three of the team’s last six games. Entering the game Thursday morning, Canha was hitless in his last ten at-bats.

That changed quickly in the Mets 4-1 win over that Nationals on Thursday afternoon. He took advantage of three walks in the first inning to Brandon Nimmo, Francisco Lindor and Jeff McNeil, with a 2-run single to center field over the shortstop to give the Mets an early 2-0 nothing lead. Canha led off the fourth inning with the team’s league high 54th infield single, but was stranded. The Mets’ 54 infield singles this season happen to be 19-more than any other team in the league.

Canha leadoff the ninth inning with a towering solo home run to center field, and finished the day going 3-for-4 with three RBIs and two runs scored. Canha is now 9-for-28 to go along with 10 RBIs with runners in scoring position on the year, and is 7-for-16 with runners in scoring position when there are 2-outs.

Canha’s 27.1 hard hit% is in the bottom 7% of the league, which explains his lack of extra base hits on he year thus far. Canha recently said he knew that he wasn’t hitting the ball hard nor was he driving the ball, so despite his success in terms of batting average, he needed to make a change in his approach to hit the ball with more authority. Early results look good.

After the game Buck Showalter was asked about why Canha had been on the bench lately and the skipper said, “it’s just creating ways for Travis Jankowski to be involved, for [Dominic Smith] to be involved, for [McNeil] and Luis Guillorme to be moved around and keep everybody involved.”

It’s also interesting to note that Buck had Canha workout at firts base recently. A position the veteran only played two innings at in 2021, though he does have 118 games of experience there in his career.

On the year Canha is hitting .313/.376/.389, but still has only three extra base hits. After struggling of late, the three hits including his second home run of the season, is exactly what Canha needed.