Yoenis Cespedes ripped his first home run as a Met on Wednesday night, a screaming bullet in the eighth inning with two outs to ice the Mets lead at 3-0. It was his 19th home run of the season and his first since July 30 at Baltimore.
“It feels good. I feel happy to get it off my back, to get my first out of the way,” Cespedes said through a translator. “I feel like I’m helping the team, not only because of the first home run, because it’s the first hit in the last five days.” ((New York Post)
Cespedes had been 1-for-18 at Citi Field before his homer.
“Every hitter goes through a little slump and gets lost at the plate. I was a little lost for the last couple days. But I don’t feel like it’s going to be a big deal. I’m going to be able to work it out and be back on track.”
Acquired by the Mets at the trade deadline for top pitching prospects Michael Fulmer and Luis Cessa, Cespedes was brought in to be that true righty power threat and difference maker in the lineup.
“New park, new league; I think a lot of his start is that … I’m not concerned he’s going to hit. Everybody I’ve talked to about him said, ‘You have some kind of good player on your hands.’ He’s going to get it going, and he’s going to carry us a lot of nights.”
Cespedes showed off his sense of humor, telling reporters after the game that he wore his bright yellow sleeve to look like the yellow parakeet that was flying around Citi Field during the game and mesmerized Gary Cohen and Keith Hernandez.
“I see other people using it, a different color,” he said. “I just used it because I know there was a bird in the field and I just wanted to look like the bird, and it would bring me some luck.”
On this night it worked as he absolutely crushed that baseball so hard, and it exited the park so fast, that if you blinked you would have missed it. It was great to see him get this first homer out of the way.
