Rene Rivera entered the 2017 season with two main objectives. The first was to back up the injury-prone and inconsistent Travis d’Arnaud. The second was to provide stability for Noah Syndergaard behind the plate as a veteran who could help the Mets’ rising ace on the hill. The latter objective quickly vanished when Syndergaard infamously refused an MRI before proceeding to partially tear his lat muscle requiring the righty to sit out the majority of the season.
Nonetheless Rivera started the season off on a hot streak, by his standards, ending the first two months of the season hitting .