NEW YORK — He didn’t have to wait long — a sliver of a second, really. An 86 mph changeup does need more time to reach a batter than a fastball.
In Michael Cuddyer’s first at-bat Monday, the Rockies’ 35-year-old reigning batting champion turned on a rocket-shot home run to left field. No one in Citi Field thought twice about it. The homer was decided off the bat.
Cuddyer’s eagerness showed. On Monday afternoon, the Rockies activated him off the 15-day disabled list and immediately plopped him at first base, hitting clean-up, for Monday night’s series-opener against the Mets.
Problem was, Cuddyer raced back for another loss.
Mets pinch-runner Eric Young Jr., a former Rockies outfielder and the son of Colorado’s first-base coach, helped ruin Cuddyer’s return as the Mets rallied in the ninth inning for a walk-off 3-2 victory in Queens.
“They ended up getting a couple big hits,” Weiss said.
Curtis Granderson tripled in the ninth inning off Colorado closer LaTroy Hawkins to score Young, who ran from second after Travis d’Arnaud doubled. Then Wilmer Flores’ fly ball to center sacrificed in Granderson for the game-winner.
For Cuddyer, it was his 131st at-bat of the season, in just his 35th game. And he didn’t waste the chance. His second-inning home run — paired with Nolan Arenado’s solo shot in the eighth — gave the Rockies a 2-1 lead into the ninth.
“The whole circumstances, where I’ve been on rehab twice already this year, I was just sick of it,” said Cuddyer, who hit his seventh home run and 20th RBI.
“I was able to get a good pitch to hit and fortunately I didn’t miss it. I felt good, I felt comfortable at the plate.”
Colorado was the hottest last-place team in baseball until Monday, but the Rockies snapped a four-game winning streak. Colorado, after sweeping the Padres on Sunday, tied the Diamondbacks in fourth place in the National League West. The Rockies (59-85) had a chance to move a half-game ahead of idle Arizona on Monday, but instead fall back into the cellar.
When Cuddyer last started a game, on Aug. 17 at Coors Field against the Reds, he played all 18 innings in a doubleheader. In the second game, he hit for the cycle — in order, a triple, single, homer and double — just the seventh in Rockies history.
He perhaps went too hard. The two games were his first after missing 59 with a broken shoulder. And a hamstring injry set him back down on the DL. He missed 13 more.
It was like he’d never left. His home run, on a 1-1 pitch from Mets starter Jonathon Niese, tied the game at 1-1 in the second.
“It’s pretty impressive, to be out that long, not have a rehab assignment, come in first time up and hit a ball out of this park,” Weiss said. “We’ve seen him do it for a few years.”
PHOTOS:
Rockies starter Jordan Lyles, who allowed just three hits overs six innings, walked New York’s Kirk Nieuwenhuis in the first inning. It cost him. Lucas Duda’s double two hitters later scored Nieuwenhuis as the Mets took a 1-0 lead.
It was a 1-1 pitcher’s duel into the eighth though, when Arenado hit a solo homer in the eighth to left field off Vic Black. The Rockies’ lead, though, wasn’t late enough.
The Mets “got some big hits in the ninth inning — that’s what it came down to,” Weiss said.
Nick Groke: ngroke@denverpost.com or
