Mets' homer parade comes to Citi Field

NEW YORK -- By game's end, the Mets’ 6-5 win over the Nationals on Saturday was a derby. J.D. Davis hit the hardest home run of the Major League season, then followed it up with the Mets’ longest of the year. Michael Conforto blasted a parabola into the second deck. Pete Alonso struck the batter’s eye in straightaway center. Robinson Canó muscled one onto the Shea Bridge.

That the game-winning hit was an opposite-field single by Keon Broxton seemed almost curious for a Mets team that was flexing its power all afternoon.

“We all go up there with a mindset that we’ve got to win a game,” Broxton said. “No matter the situation, we figure out a way to win.”

Over the Mets’ first five victories of the year, that formula mostly consisted of opposite-field singles like Broxton’s -- a product of hitting coach Chili Davis’ well-worn philosophy. The Mets hit just four home runs in their first seven games, making it even more noteworthy when they crushed five of them a combined 2,121 feet on Saturday.

Batting cleanup for the third time since coming to Flushing in a five-player trade this winter, Davis crushed his first home run 114.7 mph off the bat. It was the hardest-hit homer in the Majors this season, and the third-hardest by a Met since Statcast began tracking in 2015. Two innings later, Davis became the first Met to hit multiple home runs of at least 110 mph in that era, bashing a 111.3 mph shot to left. His second shot was impressive in a different way -- at 446 feet, it edged Alonso’s first career homer for the longest of the Mets’ young season.

“That’s what we are right now,” Davis said. “We’ve got a high-energy team. … We’ve got plenty of fight up and down the lineup.

On this day, the Mets would need it. Continued shakiness from the bullpen -- this time, Jeurys Familia was the culprit, allowing three runs in the eighth -- thrust the Mets into a two-run hole with six outs to go. Alonso cut the lead in half with a 427-foot homer off the end of his bat, drawing the Mets within one and bringing Cano to the plate. As he returned to the dugout, Alonso told teammate Tomas Nido: “If he hits one here, this place is going to absolutely erupt.”

“And he hit one to the moon and the place absolutely went berserk,” Alonso said. “That was really cool to see.”

The moon, in this instance, was the Shea Bridge in right-center field, 429 feet from home. Ho, hum. None of the Mets’ five home runs traveled less than 400 feet. On average, they came off the bat at 111 mph.

Consider that striking for a team that has struggled to slug at home over Citi Field’s first decade. Only twice in Citi’s first 10 seasons did the Mets hit five home runs in a game here, compared to seven times on the road during that stretch. A recent Wall Street Journal study found that exit velocities -- both from the Mets and their opponents -- drop an average of 1 mph at Citi Field. To combat the offensive environment at Citi, team officials twice moved in the fences. They studied wind patterns and blueprints, going as far as to change the times of their daily meals and routines.

One game isn’t enough to mark an end of that era, but it can at least provide the Mets with hope that this year, their offense will be too powerful even for Citi Field to dampen. Late Saturday afternoon, Mets players were buzzing about the talent up and down their lineup -- from Cano, who punctuated his home run with an artful bat drop, to Alonso, a rookie who ranks among the game’s strongest players. Davis clocks in high on that list as well. Mash them all together, and the Mets consider themselves dangerous.

“That attitude is infectious,” Alonso said. “Never count us out. Like the Mets’ saying is, ‘Ya gotta believe.’”