The players who started the Major League season for the St. Lucie Mets, the Class-A Advanced affiliate of the New York Mets, had separate paths as to where their season would end. Some ended the year still in St. Lucie, planning their offseason and working towards improving their chance to advance through the system, en route to their dreams of making the big leagues. Some were traded at the trade deadline, given new opportunities to establish their name for a team that wanted them and had great expectations for them. For Michael Conforto, who went 2-4 with a walk in St. Lucie’s opener against the Bradenton Marauders on April 9, his season will end in the World Series, and in Game Four of the Fall Classic at Citi Field, he established his name not only as a New York Met, but as a name to remember for MLB seasons to come.
The twenty-two-year old outfielder from Seattle belted two solo home runs against Kansas City on Saturday night, becoming the sixth Met to record a multi-homer game in the postseason, and, apart from Andruw Jones for the Atlanta Braves in 1996 and Tony Kubek for the New York Yankees in 1957, the youngest player to hit two homers in a World Series game. He is also the youngest player in Mets franchise history to hit a home run in the postseason. He and Hall of Fame catcher Gary Carter in Game Four of the 1986 Fall Classic are the only Mets to accomplish multi-homer games in the World Series.
At 6’1″ and 215 pounds, to say Conforto is a beast would be an understatement. His bloodlines are rooted in athleticism. His mother, Tracie, is a two-time Olympic gold medalist who at Los Angeles in 1984 for women’s solo and duet synchronized swimming. His father, Mike, played inside linebacker at Penn State. Michael chose baseball, and he excelled at an early age. He, along with the town of Redmond, Washington, represented the Northwest Region in the 2004 Little League World Series. After graduating from Redmond High School as an honor roll student, he decided to attend Oregon State University on a baseball scholarship. In his freshman year, he broke the single-season record at OSU with seventy-six RBI in fifty-six games, and was named Pac-12 Freshman of the Year, as well as Freshman Hitter of the Year, by the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association. Conforto compiled an outstanding career at Oregon State, winning Pac-12 Player of the Year twice and leading the Beavers to a College World Series appearance in 2013, before being drafted tenth overall by the Mets in 2014.
Most Major League talents, including the greats, take around two to three years to reach the big leagues, but Conforto blazed trails in the minors. He made his Major League debut on July 24, 2015, barely over a year after he signed his contract with New York, and just two weeks after playing in the All-Star Futures Game in Cincinnati. He had a fine rookie season, with a slash line of .270/.335/.506 through fifty-six games, hitting nine home runs and driving in twenty-six runs. Yet before the night of Game Four, he had struggled in his first postseason, hitting .091 with a homer and four RBI.
However, on Saturday night, he was the man-of-the-hour for the Mets, clubbing a mammoth shot into the Pepsi Porch at Citi Field off Royals starter Chris Young in the third inning, giving New York a 1-0 advantage. He then made history in the fifth off Royals reliever Danny Duffy to stretch the Mets lead to 3-1.
The significance of the second homer, besides the historical value, was the fact that he achieved it off of the lefty Duffy. Terry Collins had been reluctant to use Conforto against left-handed pitching since his call-up and into the postseason, benching him when they faced Clayton Kershaw in the NLDS and Jon Lester in the NLCS. Yet, despite his lack of postseason success and experience, Conforto had started every other playoff game for the Mets, and Collins never planned on pinch-hitting for his young slugger when Duffy, who hadn’t given up a home run to a left-handed hitter since 2011, was brought in. Conforto took advantage of the opportunity. In just his eighteenth career plate appearance against left-handed pitching, he served Duffy’s two-strike curveball into the right field seats, proving to his manager, his teammates, and the baseball world that his left-handed power is a force to be reckoned with for years to come.
With all that said, Conforto’s performance is, at best, bittersweet, as New York would blow their two-run lead in the eighth inning. New York would go on to lose 5-3 and would face elimination for the rest of the series. They and their hopes of bringing a World Championship to a franchise that hadn’t tasted October glory since 1986, faced an almost impossible uphill climb. Still, Michael Conforto can look back on that night with a smile and remember the excitement of providing hope to a team in search of destiny and the humbling feeling of crossing home plate, twice, in a game he’s dreamed of playing since he was a little kid in Redmond, Washington.
This kid brings major elation to the Mets franchise, regardless of their disappointing finish. His strength is immense, but he has brains to go with brawn. Despite his poor performance before Saturday night, he understood he was connecting on pitches and stuck with his game plan, and it paid off. The near future for the young Mets outfielder is bright and with the opportunity to play every day, mixed in with the postseason experience, baseball fans might be looking at a future star.
Michael Conforto started the season in Class-A Advanced St. Lucie, Florida, fighting hard to achieve the dream of many a ball player: reaching the Major Leagues. He will end the season, no matter how the Mets finish, as a World Series hero and in the Major League record books.
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