David Lennon: Carlos Mendoza turns to his bench and finds talent and depth

SAN FRANCISCO — Consider the Mets’ early April crisis officially over.

Maybe it wasn’t exactly Panic City, the phrase famously coined by former GM Sandy Alderson, a longtime Bay Area resident, but let’s admit it. After the Mets went belly-up in Thursday’s series opener at Oracle Park, making them the only team in the NL East below .500, the anxiety was palpable.

Then Juan Soto limps off the field Friday night, and the hyperventilating could truly begin.

Yet somehow, not in the Mets’ dugout, where manager Carlos Mendoza wound up playing Wheel of Fortune with the lineup card — trying to spin solutions for Soto’s calf strain, Jorge Polanco’s sore Achilles and suddenly Brett Baty’s jammed thumb. Incredibly, by late Sunday afternoon, the brewing catastrophe had cleared, in ways that few of us would have imagined.

Tyrone Taylor? Luis Torrens? Jared Young?

Those weren’t the April saviors anyone had in mind. But even a $370 million roster needs to rely on the understudies occasionally, and the Mets needed all of them this weekend, especially for Sunday’s 5-2 comeback victory over the Giants.

Let’s start with Torrens, the backup catcher, who sprung off the bench to deliver the go-ahead two-run double off Giants’ lefty reliever Erik Miller in the eighth inning. Torrens actually was sent in to pinch-hit for Young, who already had three hits on the day subbing in leftfield for the late-scratch Baty, and he battled Miller for nine pitches, punching the last one a few feet inside the rightfield foul line.

“Just put the ball in play there,” Torrens said through an interpreter. “I was prepared from even before the game, when [Mendoza] told me there might be a situation where I come in. For me, it’s just to be focused and try to execute.”

Afterward, Mendoza went as far as to credit bench coach Kai Correa for mentioning Torrens as the magic bullet against the Giants’ stable of lefty relievers. Remember, the Mets already had a short bench, with Soto down and Baty iffy. But Mendoza, with Correa’s input, figured that was the spot, despite the risk of burning the second catcher with the game very much in flux.

“He’s going to give you quality at-bats,” Mendoza said of the reliable Torrens, who has a career .352 average (19-for-54) as a pinch-hitter. “I like him, but it’s just not easy to empty the bench like that. But it was a situation that presented itself and we executed.”

The previous night, Mendoza sent up Taylor to hit for Young against lefthander Ryan Borucki and he slammed a three-run homer, a 416-foot blast that fired up the Mets en route to the 10-3 blowout. Dialing up a pair of game-turning pinch-hit performances on consecutive nights doesn’t happen all that often. Not only does it involve making the right decisions for those matchups, but there’s got to be trustworthy personnel on the bench ready for those chances.

“We got good players, up and down,” Mendoza said. “There’s a lot of versatility. There’s a lot of things we could do because of the flexibility. But it goes to show you that it’s a deep roster.”

That’s what the Mets have in Torrens, and Taylor — along with maybe the unlikeliest hero in Young, who was barely on the Mets’ radar before Mike Tauchman suffered a torn meniscus in his knee during the second-to-last Grapefruit League game. That put Young on the Opening Day roster and he’s been making an impact ever since.

Mendoza raised eyebrows last Monday by starting Young in the St. Louis series opener — just the fourth game of the season — and he delivered a tie-breaking two-run double in the Mets’ 4-2 win. On Sunday, going with Young was more of a last-minute, emergency decision after Mendoza chose to scratch Baty because of the hurting thumb.

So Young made his first start this season in leftfield, and wound up hitting fifth in the Soto-less lineup. All he did was go 3-for-3 before being pulled in the eighth for the pinch-hitter Torrens. Young also made a great bullet throw from deep leftfield to cut down Jerar Encarnacion trying to stretch for a double in the fifth inning.

“Good carom off the wall,” Young said. “It’s always easier when the ball kind of goes where you expect it to and comes right to you. Then you don’t have to change much. Just turn and fire and try to get it on-line.”

Young’s laser negated one of the only hard-hit balls off Kodai Senga, who protected a 1-0 lead into the sixth before getting burned by soft contact and ultimately leaving that inning with the Mets in a 2-1 hole. Senga struck out seven over his 5 2/3-inning stint, and appreciated that Young’s throw was an early momentum-turner.

“Amazing,” Senga said through an interpreter.

The Mets also got contributions from some of the more higher-profile subs now working their way back into the starting conversation. Mark Vientos had two more hits, including an RBI single, to bump him up to 10-for-21 (.476) with a 1.236 OPS in six games this season.

As a whole, the Mets proved to be a very resourceful bunch, rebounding to go 4-3 on this seven-game road trip. It’s also going to dramatically change the vibe at Citi Field for this week’s return, as Flushing could have been a little restless otherwise. Crazy, we know. But thanks in large part to the bench trio of Taylor, Torrens and Young, the panic can wait for another day.

By David Lennon

dave.lennon@newsday.comDPLennon

David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.