The New York Mets played in their third consecutive extra-inning game on Tuesday night, but they found a way to win back-to-back games with a 7-2 victory over the Washington Nationals. In the past 48 hours, they have scored a total of 11 runs in the 10th inning. An unsung hero with a new hit song ended up being the hero when Jose Iglesias doubled down the right field line to bring in Tyrone Taylor and start the scoring.
We have a long way to go before Iglesias’s hit track of OMG goes into the same baseball lore as Gerardo Parra and Baby Shark when the Washington Nationals won the World Series in 2019. However, the veteran shortstop has been everything as advertised in the field, but has surprised with his performance at the plate.
In 20 games with the Mets, the 34-year-old has a slash line of .388/.423/.551 with a home run, 10 RBIs, and a .974 OPS. His 16 hits in the month of June were 8th on the team, but that was only because he played in just 17 games. What has been impressive about Iglesias is his ability to have a flare for the dramatic.
Photo by Rafael Suanes of USA Today
With runners in scoring position this year, Iglesias is 8-for-13 with all of his production coming in those key moments in games such as last night in the 10th. Even his teammates such as Brandon Nimmo and J.D. Martinez know how much of a key contributor Iglesias can be besides just the fun he has in the locker room.
“Obviously, we all kid around and love the ‘OMG’ stuff, and it’s been awesome, and we’ve all gotten behind it. But he’s an amazing player behind that. There’s no way around it,” said Nimmo.
“But he’s a gamer. He’s a good ballplayer. He knows how to put the ball in play. He makes good plays. He’s good defensively. He just plays the game the right way,” said Martinez.
When the Mets gave Iglesias a minor league deal in December, no one could have expected him to have this kind of impact on the team in a way where he is pushing to get himself in the lineup daily and putting pressure on Jeff McNeil to perform. But, in the minors, the veteran was having the better hitting seasons of his career with power. His seven home runs at Triple-A Syracuse were the most he had in his minor-league career and the most at any level of baseball since the nine he hit in 2021.
Obviously, Iglesias is not a true power hitter, but he knows his role on the team and every team needs a player or two that is going to know what the right baseball play is and to not do too much when the moment presents itself. The 34-year-old fits both of those descriptions perfectly.
As the Mets continue to push towards playing meaningful games in September, if Iglesias keeps performing the way he is, it’s going to be hard for Carlos Mendoza not to keep him in the lineup and find a role for a player who is versatile in the infield.
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