ATLANTA _ In Amed Rosario and Pete Alonso, the Mets have what they hope amounts to an organizational gold mine: two homegrown, pre-prime position players who can be penciled into the lineup for the next half-decade _ at least.
Whether each player can turn flashes of major league stardom, Rosario's late last season and Alonso's in recent weeks, into full-fledged greatness is a question that can be answered only with time.
But for at least a night, in a 6-3 win Thursday night against the Braves, they played like the franchise cornerstones the Mets (8-4) think they can be. Rosario and Alonso each went 2 for 4 with a homer, driving in all of the Mets' runs.
Alonso's latest gawk-worthy long ball came in the seventh, a two-run shot that landed 454 feet from home, splashing into an elevated pond above the center-field wall. The line drive came off Alonso's bat at 118.3 mph, according to MLB's Statcast tracking system. That's the second-hardest batted ball this season _ behind only Giancarlo Stanton's 120.6-mph single on Opening Day _ and the hardest homer by anyone other than Stanton and Aaron Judge in five seasons of Statcast data.
Alonso's six homers are tied for second in the National League (behind the Dodgers' Cody Bellinger). His 17 RBIs are also second in the league (also behind Bellinger, who has 19).
Of Rosario's career-high four RBIs, three came on a homer to right-center in the second inning. His slow exit from the batter's box suggested he knew it was gone. In the seventh, Rosario poked an outside slider from Wes Parsons into right field for a two-out single. That was the last run charged to Kevin Gausman (four runs, 5 2/3 innings).
Rosario still has weak spots in his offensive game _ he has struck out in nearly one out of every three at-bats on the young season _ but is walking about 10 percent of the time, twice as often as he did in 2018. He is also making hard contact more frequently. His hard-hit rate is 37 percent, according to FanGraphs, a considerable jump from his 27.7 percent last year.
Long Island native Steven Matz settled in after an iffy couple of innings to hold the Braves to two runs in six innings. After Atlanta scored in the first (Ronald Acuna Jr.'s RBI triple that turned center fielder Juan Lagares around and bounced off his glove) and in the second (Johan Camargo homer), Matz retired 13 consecutive batters, including eight via strikeout.
In three starts, Matz (1-0) has a 1.65 ERA.
Altogether, it meant a promising start to the Mets' season series with the Braves, which Mets manager Mickey Callaway stressed Thursday afternoon as an important part of his team's season. Last year, the Mets went 6-13 against Atlanta, which won the NL East with just 90 wins.
This year, in a bulked-up division that saw the Phillies, Mets and Nationals make big offseason moves, it's easy to forget that the Braves were better than them all in 2018.
"They took care of us last year," Callaway said. "We have to make sure that doesn't happen again."
