Mets get power boost from journeyman Jared Young after his stint in South Korea

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Mets get power boost from journeyman Jared Young after his stint in South Korea

2025-05-28 18:00 Last Updated At：18:11

NEW YORK (AP) — After hitting a two-run shot for the New York Mets on Tuesday night, Jared Young was reminded it was his first major league homer in 613 days.

“Felt that long, yeah," he said. "It's the best league in the world, so you’ve got to play your best to be here and have success here. But I’m glad to be back, and that one felt good.”

Called up from the minors Saturday after spending part of last season in South Korea, the 29-year-old from Canada helped power the Mets to a 6-4 victory over the Chicago White Sox.

Young gave New York a 4-2 lead in the first inning with a drive over the right-field fence that marked his third career longball and first in the big leagues since Sept. 22, 2023, for the Chicago Cubs against Colorado.

He also delivered a well-struck double to right-center that set up Jeff McNeil's sacrifice fly in the third, giving Young multiple extra-base hits for the first time in his 26 major league games.

“He looked great. He’s been having really good at-bats and I felt like tonight you really got to see what he’s able to do," said Mets slugger Pete Alonso, who launched a two-run homer of his own two batters before Young connected.

"He's a great guy to have. Not only is he a great performer but I mean, the couple days that he’s been here, he’s been a really good teammate. So, he’s been a treat to have so far.”

With designated hitter Jesse Winker (also a left-handed batter) on the injured list, the Mets brought up Young from Triple-A Syracuse to face a string of right-handed starters over the past few days.

He's started four games in a row and impressed manager Carlos Mendoza with the way he controls the strike zone — but Young's home run Tuesday was his first hit for New York.

“Look, he’s getting an opportunity," Mendoza said. "He’s back in the big leagues after a lot of grinding. Whether it’s minor leagues, up and down, going overseas, he's getting an opportunity back here in the States, and here we are giving him a chance and he’s taking advantage of it. Like I said, I like the at-bats and it was good to see him get some results today.”

Young played at small schools in Oklahoma (Connors State College) and North Dakota (Minot State University) before getting selected by the Cubs in the 15th round of the 2017 amateur draft from Old Dominion in Virginia.

He made his major league debut with Chicago in September 2022 and got 47 plate appearances in 2023. Young was then claimed off waivers by the St. Louis Cardinals and played 74 games at Triple-A Memphis last year before getting released on July 30.

So he signed with the Doosan Bears in South Korea and batted .326 with 10 homers and 39 RBIs over 38 games in the KBO — where he was teammates with Mets left-hander Brandon Waddell, another international success story.

New York signed Young last December and sent him to Syracuse, where he began the season on the injured list.

But once he got healthy, he pounded Triple-A pitching, batting .259 with a .393 on-base percentage and .533 slugging percentage. He had five homers, five doubles, 21 RBIs and 12 walks in 22 games before being called up.

“You believe in yourself and you believe in the player that you are, I feel like it takes care of a lot of things,” Young said. "There’s going to be a lot of ups and downs in kind of any career — I don’t care if it’s playing baseball, or doing anything. But I think when you believe in yourself you can get to where you want to get.”

Asked how he's been feeling at the plate in the majors, Young said: “Pretty comfortable."

“Trying to keep things as similar as possible to all the baseball you’ve played, whether in the minors or the big leagues, wherever you are,” he explained. “You know, just put good at-bats and be a tough out.”

He certainly was Tuesday night, hitting sixth in a dangerous Mets lineup that features some of baseball's biggest stars in Alonso, Juan Soto and Francisco Lindor.

“It's awesome. It’s great,” Young said. "You take a look at this team from the top down, I mean, pretty good ballplayers and winning a lot of games. So, to get thrown into it, I feel like I belong and I feel like it’s a good spot and a good fit, and hope we can just keep winning some ballgames.”

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Hennepin County prosecutor calls on the public to share Renee Good shooting evidence with her office

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty on Friday called on members of the public to send any video or other evidence in the fatal shooting of Renee Good directly to her office, challenging the Trump administration's decision to leave the investigation solely to the FBI.

Moriarty said that although her office has collaborated effectively with the FBI in past cases, she is concerned by the Trump administration's decision to bar state and local agencies from playing any role in the investigation into Wednesday's killing of Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Minneapolis.

She also said that despite the Trump administration’s insistence that the officer who shot Good has complete legal immunity, that isn’t the case.

“We do have jurisdiction to make this decision with what happened in this case,” she said at a news conference. “It does not matter that it was a federal law enforcement agent.”

Moriarty said her office would post a link for the public to submit footage of the shooting, even though she acknowledged that she wasn't sure what legal outcome submissions might produce.

The prosecutor's announcement came on a third day of Minneapolis protests over Good's killing and a day after federal immigration officers shot and wounded two people in Portland, Oregon.

Good's wife, Becca Good, released a statement to Minnesota Public Radio on Friday saying, “kindness radiated out of her.”

"On Wednesday, January 7th, we stopped to support our neighbors. We had whistles. They had guns," Becca Good said.

“I am now left to raise our son and to continue teaching him, as Renee believed, that there are people building a better world for him,” she wrote. “That the people who did this had fear and anger in their hearts, and we need to show them a better way.”

The reaction to the Good's shooting was immediate in the city where police killed George Floyd in 2020, with hundreds of protesters converging on the shooting scene and the school district canceling classes for the rest of the week as a precaution.

On Thursday night, hundreds marched in freezing rain down one of Minneapolis’ major thoroughfares, chanting “ICE out now!” and holding signs saying, “Killer ice off our streets." And on Friday, protesters were out again demonstrating outside of a federal facility that is serving as a hub for the immigration crackdown that began Tuesday in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Authorities erected barricades outside the facility Friday.

City workers, meanwhile, removed makeshift barricades made of old Christmas trees and other debris that had been blocking the streets near the scene of Good's shooting. Officials said they would leave up a shrine to the 37-year-old mother of three.

The Portland shootings happened outside a hospital Thursday afternoon. Federal immigration officers shot and wounded a man and woman, identified by the Department of Homeland Security as Venezuela nationals Luis David Nico Moncada and Yorlenys Betzabeth Zambrano-Contreras, who were inside a vehicle, and their conditions weren't immediately known. The FBI and the Oregon Department of Justice were investigating.

Portland Mayor Keith Wilson and the city council called on ICE to end all operations in the city until a full investigation is completed. Hundreds protested Thursday night at a local ICE building. Early Friday, Portland police reported that officers had arrested several protesters after asking the to get out of a street to allow traffic to flow.

Just as it did following Good's shooting, DHS defended the actions of the officers in Portland, saying it occurred after a Venezuelan man with alleged gang ties and who was involved in a recent shooting tried to “weaponize” his vehicle to hit the officers. It wasn't immediately clear if the shootings were captured on video, as Good's was.

The Minneapolis shooting happened on the second day of the immigration crackdown in the Twin Cities, which Homeland Security said is the biggest immigration enforcement operation ever. More than 2,000 officers are taking part and Noem said they have made more than 1,500 arrests.

The government is also shifting immigration officers to Minneapolis from sweeps in Louisiana, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press. This represents a pivot, as the Louisiana crackdown that began in December had been expected to last into February.

Good's death — at least the fifth tied to immigration sweeps since Trump took office — has resonated far beyond Minneapolis, as protests happening in other places, including Texas, California, Detroit and Missouri.

In Washington, D.C., on Thursday, a woman held a sign that said, “Stop Trump’s Gestapo,” as hundreds of people marched to the White House. Protesters in Pflugerville, Texas, north of Austin, banged on the walls of an ICE facility. And a man in Los Angeles burned an American flag in front of federal detention center.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, President Donald Trump and others in his administration have repeatedly characterized the Minneapolis shooting as an act of self-defense and cast Good as a villain, suggesting she used her vehicle as a weapon to attack the officer who shot her.

But state and local officials and protesters rejected that characterization, with Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey saying videos show the self-defense argument is “garbage.”

Several bystanders captured footage of Good's killing, which happened in a neighborhood south of downtown.

The recordings show an officer approaching an SUV stopped across the middle of the road, demanding the driver open the door and grabbing the handle. The Honda Pilot begins to pull forward and a different ICE officer standing in front of it pulls his weapon and immediately fires at least two shots at close range, jumping back as the vehicle moves toward him.

It is not clear from the videos if the vehicle makes contact with the officer, and there is no indication of whether the woman had interactions with agents earlier. After the shooting, the SUV speeds into two cars parked on a curb before crashing to a stop.

The federal agent who fatally shot Good is an Iraq War veteran who has served for nearly two decades in the Border Patrol and ICE, according to records obtained by AP.

Noem has not publicly named him, but a Homeland Security spokesperson said her description of his injuries last summer refers to an incident in Bloomington, Minnesota, in which court documents identify him as Jonathan Ross.

Ross got his arm stuck in the window of a vehicle whose driver was fleeing arrest on an immigration violation. Ross was dragged and fired his Taser. A jury found the driver guilty of assaulting a federal officer with a dangerous weapon.

Attempts to reach Ross, 43, at phone numbers and email addresses associated with him were not successful.

Associated Press reporters Steve Karnowski and Mark Vancleave in Minneapolis; Ed White in Detroit; Valerie Gonzalez in Brownsville, Texas; Graham Lee Brewer in Norman, Oklahoma; Michael Biesecker in Washington; Jim Mustian and Safiyah Riddle in New York; Ryan Foley in Iowa City, Iowa; and Hallie Golden in Seattle contributed to this report.