Meneses finally snaps homer slump with pair of blasts

Joey Meneses didn’t need to be told. He knew how long it had been since he’d hit a baseball over a fence in a game.

Not that it stopped anyone and everyone from talking to him about it. Which, in turn, made it awfully hard not to think about it.

“Absolutely,” the Nationals designated hitter said, via interpreter Octavio Martinez. “It seems like everybody reminds you of that. Friends. Teammates. Just in general, it seems like you get a comment saying: ‘Why aren’t the home runs coming?’ So you always have it in your mind.”

Perhaps that’s what prompted Meneses to do what he did in the bottom of the sixth Friday night: Toss his bat in defiant celebration and look at his dugout after he ended a two-month home run drought with a two-homer game.

“It’s somewhat of a relief,” he said. “I can take a deep breath and relax a little bit. It’s my job to hit, so it was great to be able to hit two home runs today.”

After bursting onto the scene as a 30-year-old rookie late last season, Meneses blasted 13 homers in 240 plate appearances, then blasted two more memorable ones for Team Mexico against Team USA in this spring’s World Baseball Classic. There was every reason to believe the late bloomer would continue to be a regular power threat in his second big league season.

Until he wasn’t. Meneses didn’t hit his first homer of the 2023 season until April 21 in Minnesota. He didn’t hit his second until May 7 in Arizona. And then he proceeded to go 199 more plate appearances without hitting another one, making it through more than half of the regular season without clearing the fence once in a home game.

He put an end to that drought in a big way Friday night. Meneses hit a ball 379 feet to left field off Rangers left-hander Cody Bradford in the bottom of the first. Then he hit another ball 428 feet to left field off right-hander Glenn Otto in the bottom of the seventh, prompting that bat flip.

“He was just aggressive on the fastball,” manager Davey Martinez said. “Got ready, caught the ball out front. He’s been working really hard on trying to hit the ball out front a little more. And he got the bat head out in front of home plate.”

The season hasn’t been a total wash for Meneses. He maintained a .300 batting average through June 18. His OPS got as high as .753 a week prior to that. He’s been one of the best clutch hitters in the majors throughout, batting .405 with runners in scoring position.

But through it all, Meneses hasn’t felt like the complete hitter he knows he can be. He’s been waiting to feel the particular sensation a hitter gets when he truly connects on a pitch and drives in high and far. It hasn’t happened much this year. When it finally happened twice Friday night, it was oh so welcome.

“The contact feels great,” he said. “I’ve been trying to find good contact like that for a while now, so it feels great tonight that they came out.”