Surging Ramos homers twice in Mets’ victory

NEW YORK -- Wilson Ramos’ incredible week at the plate reached its boiling point Saturday afternoon.

Ramos homered twice and recorded his second four-RBI game of the season in a 5-4, 13-inning victory against the Tigers at Citi Field. He finishes the week batting .500 (9-for-18) with three homers, seven RBIs and four multi-hit games.

“I've been working really good at the cage right now, getting my timing back,” he said. “I feel relaxed at the plate right now, getting good pitches to hit.”

Ramos also homered Friday night and finished 3-for-4 on Saturday to boost his average to .270 with five homers and 31 RBIs total. He also provided a run-scoring single in the fourth inning.

“My confidence right now at the plate, I feel great, getting good pitches to hit, you know, control my emotions, so I feel great right now,” he said.

His only other four-RBI effort came on the strength of his first-inning grand slam May 14 in Washington.

That homer, his blast off Joe Jimenez in Friday’s series opener and his first one Saturday against Ryan Carpenter were all pulled out to left. According to FanGraphs, Ramos is hitting the ball to the opposite field 33 percent of the time compared to a 31.3 percent pull rate.

Ramos said that he’s had better pitch selection, particularly on the inside pitches.

“I had been swinging at bad pitches inside,” he said. “It's not about pull the ball more, it's more about swinging at the right pitch.”

Mickey Callaway said that Ramos ironed out an issue that led to a 61.7 percent ground ball rate, in which the backstop wasn’t getting the barrel out in front of the plate.

“When he gets all those ground balls, he's catching the ball deep and he's not able to get underneath the ball and drive it,” Callaway said. “Obviously he's driving it now.”

The Mets desperately needed this type of production out of a regular starter like Ramos with more than half the Opening Day lineup sidelined with injuries. It’s a bonus to get these contributions from catcher as well.

Tomas Nido, who entered the game as a pinch hitter in the ninth inning Saturday, ended the 13-inning marathon with a walk-off homer.

“It was like Mike Piazza back there or something,” Callaway quipped. “It is a spot where we want production, that’s the reason Ramos is our starting catcher because he’s going to produce when he’s back there.

“He did go through a tough period for a while there. Hopefully he’s over that and he’s going to ride this wave.”

After batting .368 over the first 12 games of the season, Ramos’ average got as low as .227 on May 7 after he went 11-for-70 (.157) over his next 21 games.