WASHINGTON — When you hit a home run off Max Scherzer in your first plate appearance with the team that acquired you in one of baseball’s biggest offseason trades, and it’s not even what your teammates gushed about most, you’ve had one hell of a debut.
Robinson Cano managed to be more than anyone could ask for, at that stage of his career and under those circumstances — as well as exactly what the Mets expected when they got him.
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“I’m not surprised. My first dinner with Robby this offseason, the first of several, I saw it right away,’’ manager Mickey Callaway said of Cano’s huge day with his bat, arm and head in Thursday’s Opening Day win over the Nationals.
“He’s an impactful baseball guy that brings knowledge and brings a winning attitude to everything he does, and our players are unbelievable and they’re gonna want to be helped at all times, and Robby’s in there helping them, and he makes us a much, much better team.’’
The Mets definitely looked like that kind of team, and a little closer to the kind of team Cano played for last time he wore “New York” on his chest. Cano arrived in the seven-player Jay Bruce trade over the winter after five years in Seattle, where he had signed after his stellar nine years with the Yankees. He’s now 36, his contract had become an albatross, he served an 80-game suspension for performance-enhancing drugs last season, the Mariners are in full rebuild mode, and the Mets wanted him and his veteran smarts and production in their still relatively-young clubhouse. (Cano was one of three 30-plus position players starting the opener, but the next oldest, fellow newcomer Wilson Ramos, is 31, and the other five starters were 26 or younger.)
That clubhouse was in awe of how Cano followed the first two Mets batters Thursday, both struck out by Scherzer, with a home run crushed the other way, giving Jacob deGrom all the cushion he needed. Yet what really bailed deGrom and the Mets out and got everyone buzzing was the second-to-home throw that froze Victor Robles at third, leaving him caught in a rundown for the third out when everyone in the ballpark expected Cano to simply turn and try to complete a standard double-play.
Cano was pretty much the only person in either clubhouse to play down what he did. He did admit, though, “I like to pay attention to the little details. … I knew he wasn’t expecting me to throw over to the plate. I think that’s the only chance we had.”
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That move by Cano is what got Callaway talking about what he can bring beyond a reliable bat and glove. They need more than that from him, Callaway said.
“It shows the rest of the team not only how to play the game but what winning is all about,’’ he said. “It’s doing things that you wouldn’t normally do … not just the standard routine plays — that matters a lot, you have to do the small things right — but you have to have baseball awareness and make other teams pay when they make a mistake, and Cano did that.’’
deGrom called it "court awareness."
“Just knowing what was happening in that situation," he said, "knowing it was going to be close at first, and seeing the runner (at third) take off, and being able to make that play, was very impressive.’’
The other fruits of that trade worked out well, as Edwin Diaz pitched a perfect ninth for his first Mets save. Cano also drove in an insurance run in the eighth after Scherzer had exited earlier in the inning — essentially untouchable all day except for Cano’s home run.
Maybe if Cano had given the Mets some good middle relief, he could have helped his new team more. But, again, New York couldn’t have asked for more. Asked what Callaway liked most from his new anchor at second, he said, “Can I say all of the above?’’
But, he added, using the key word that might define Cano’s 2019 season in Queens, “The awareness on the double play was outstanding.’’
