Thursday, May 07

Welcome back to the Mets Beat newsletter! Anthony DiComo has covered the Mets for MLB.com since 2007, including the past 17 seasons full-time on the beat.

DENVER -- The big moment unfolded on I-95 one night last September, somewhere between Upstate New York and North Carolina. Sitting in the driver’s seat of Austin Warren’s black GMC Denali was his mother, Alana Hix. To her right was Warren’s wife, Trinity, shining a flashlight over a medical textbook as she studied for her licensing exam.

“Look! Look!” Alana suddenly exclaimed. “It’s going to happen!”

Trinity looked up, and a moment later, Warren’s truck ticked over 100,000 miles.

Though it was an event Warren was disappointed to miss, perhaps it was fitting that he wasn’t there to see it. While Warren has spent the past five years riding the highs and lows of life as an optionable reliever, regularly shuttling across the country between the Majors and the Minors, his mother has been the one racking up miles in his truck to make the logistics work.

There was the time she drove Warren’s Denali across the country to Angels Spring Training in Arizona, with a diamond ring for Trinity hidden among the luggage. There was the time she flew to Salt Lake City to pick up Warren’s truck and shuttle it through the desert to Anaheim. There was the time she and Trinity woke up around 4:30 a.m. to make a 42-hour trek from California to North Carolina after Warren had Tommy John surgery. There was just this past spring, when Alana flew to Florida to pick up Warren’s truck and drive it to Syracuse, N.Y., so that he and Trinity wouldn’t have to make the drive with their 4-month-old baby in tow.

“There’s so many times that she’s driven my truck,” Warren said. “She probably has more miles on it than I do.”

In Alana’s mind, it’s nothing less than her duty as a baseball mother. From the time Warren was young, Alana spent hours shuttling him to and from practices and working the concession stands at his games. As Warren grew older, played in college and eventually turned pro, Alana came to see him every chance she could. She has stayed in his hotel rooms across the country. She once slept on a bench at JFK Airport to hop a flight and see him. She has taken Warren’s dog, Luna, along on road trips. Recently, Alana downsized her house in North Carolina to move within walking distance of her son.

“She’s been there every step of the way,” Warren said.

Since returning from Tommy John surgery in 2024, Warren has enjoyed his share of success with the Mets, producing a 1.15 ERA over 10 appearances with more than a strikeout per inning. Even so, instability has come in the form of Minor League options. Those have allowed the Mets to send Warren freely between the Majors and Minors up to five times per year, resulting in lots of extra travel, last-minute flights and logistical scrambles. Throw in a wife, a dog and an infant daughter, and things only grow more complicated.

That’s where Alana comes in. Because Warren’s sister is an American Airlines flight attendant, Alana can fly standby for free on any plane with an open seat. Retired from her 38-year career as an educator, she’s taken advantage of that perk countless times to come see Warren pitch, to pick up his truck or to do anything else needed to make the operation work. Even though Warren is a 30-year-old man married with a daughter, in Alana’s mind, “he’s always going to be a kid.”

“People tell me all the time when they hear what I’ve done, ‘You are such a good mother,’” Alana said. “As mothers, I think that’s just what we’re here to do is to lessen the load and provide the right guidance when they need guidance. … I don’t see myself doing anything extraordinary. I guess I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t want to, but I can’t imagine not wanting to. It’s just Point A to Point B, and let baseball happen in between.”

Who is the only player to hit at least 20 home runs for both the Mets and Diamondbacks?

A) Tony Clark

B) Eduardo Escobar

C) Wilmer Flores

D) Chris Young

• Looking to spark his injury-plagued offense, Mets manager Carlos Mendoza made a relatively dramatic lineup change this week, slotting Juan Soto in the leadoff spot for just the third time in his career. Soto hit first on both Monday and Wednesday for the Mets, who may continue asking him to do it as long as Francisco Lindor and others are out of the lineup. Here’s why Mendoza thinks it makes sense.

• It took a few weeks, but rookie outfielder Carson Benge looks to be breaking out both at the plate and in the field. Over the last week, he’s made a pair of diving catches, the first of them good enough for play-by-play man Gary Cohen to call it “pulchritudinous.” Benge spoke about his improvements after his second highlight-reel catch in Colorado this week, and our Jared Greenspan also dove deep on Benge’s outfield defense. Give both pieces a read.

• Is Swaggy V’s swag back? The results are certainly starting to come for Mark Vientos, who’s getting a chance to play every day in the face of all these Mets injuries. The results are looking a lot like they did in 2024.

B) Escobar

Escobar hit 69 homers for the Diamondbacks and 24 for the Mets, making him the only player with at least 20 for both franchises.

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