Daniel Vogelbach’s mental break seems to have paid off.
The 30-year-old returned to the Mets’ lineup and hit a house run Friday night during a 6-1 series-opening win over the Cardinals. Playing for the primary time since June 7, Vogelbach batted seventh because the designated hitter.
After he popped out and grounded out in his first two at-bats of the sport, Vogelbach turned on a sinker from Cardinals pitcher Miles Mikolas and launched a towering solo home run into the right-field upper-deck within the sixth inning. It was Vogelbach’s third homer of the yr, and fifteenth run batted in. The blast prolonged the Mets’ result in 6-1.
“I didn’t produce the way in which that I could’ve produced,” Vogelbach, who finished 1-for-3, said after the sport about his struggles. “At the tip of the day, the secret is winning. If I’m not gonna do my part to assist the team win, then anyone else can. That’s why you place within the work, and do what you may to assist this team win.
“For me, it’s to have good at-bats, hit the ball hard, and drive the baseball in.”
Vogelbach, who entered the night with a woeful .203/.343/.297 slash line, just two home runs and 14 RBIs, had confirmed on Wednesday a report by The Post that manager Buck Showalter had given him a mental break of sorts.
The Mets had essentially been playing a person short for greater than every week, with Vogelbach considered unavailable off the bench.
“No person likes to see certainly one of your teammates or your players going through a troublesome time, in a variety of ways,” Showalter said. “Daniel, he cares so much. So do his teammates about him. I see all of the work he does to get back there. … Are you able to imagine having that style of ability and power at your fingertips and never having the ability to get to it?”
Vogelbach said the break was more to work on his swing than a mental reset, and that it’s difficult to make adjustments while within the lineup day by day.
He credited hitting coach Jeremy Barnes and assistant hitting coach Eric Hinske for coming in on days off to work with him.
While the house run was a positive sign, each Vogelbach and Showalter cautioned against the notion that the Mets’ burly lefty is totally fixed.
“We won two games in a row, that’s the last word thing,” Vogelbach said. “This isn’t about me, or this isn’t a few break that I took or about me hitting a house run tonight, that is about us playing two good games in a row.”
