Marcus Semien is beginning to look like the hitter the Mets hoped they were getting when they traded for him, and the timing matters. After a slow first two months in New York, he entered Monday night’s game against the Mariners on a modest surge at the plate, with six hits in his previous three games and a line that suggested the slump may be loosening its grip.
The stretch included a double, a home run, three runs, three RBIs, two walks and two strikeouts, a useful sign for a Mets lineup that has spent most of the season searching for somebody to steady it. Semien, 35, is in his 14th season in the big leagues and has been asked to help revive an offense that had been stuck in neutral for much of the year. Entering June, he was batting.226/.280/.335, a reminder that the early returns in his first season with the club had not matched the expectations that followed him to New York.
That is why his recent production has drawn attention. The Mets passed on re-signing Pete Alonso and brought in Semien to replace Brandon Nimmo in New York, a move that made him the new guy in a new city and, at 35, their oldest position player. The club needed more than a veteran name. It needed the bat to show up, too, after an offense that had been quiet for most of the season suddenly scored 29 runs during a four-game winning streak before heading to the West Coast.
Semien said he has lived through this before. He said he has had a lot of slow starts during his career, and he pointed to his first year in Texas in 2022 as a lesson in staying patient when the numbers do not come quickly. He told Newsday on Monday that being the new guy and starting off slow is never fun, but the answer is to keep working, stay healthy and understand that the season is long. By the end, he said, the numbers tend to settle where they belong if the work continues.
Manager Carlos Mendoza has seen that side of him from the beginning. Mendoza said he has seen Semien’s work ethic since day one of spring training, describing a player who grinds, spends time in the cages, studies film and talks with hitting coaches and teammates. He said Semien does not panic, and that matters for a veteran who is trying to help a lineup that has needed stability without letting the pressure change his approach.
There is still a gap between a short burst and a season that holds together. Semien’s foot injury limited him to 127 games last year, and the trend of his bat staying dormant had already been building since 2023. The Mets do not need a hot week from him as much as they need this stretch to last, because the offense that finally started to breathe again needs one of its most experienced hitters to keep breathing with it.
