Travis d’Arnaud staked the Mets to an early lead with a three-run homer Saturday night. Since being activated from his second DL stint this year, it only seems like he’s been doing this every game. But while he has made outs in this stretch of 26 games, he’s performed even better than he did in April and he’s left Mets fans wondering how big their lead would be if he hadn’t missed nearly three months with various injuries this season.

Since returning to the lineup on July 31, d’Arnaud has a .981 OPS, with 15 of his 28 hits going for extra-bases. And he’s done this with a .314 BABIP. The Mets are 18-8 with d’Arnaud behind the plate in this stretch. Everyone is quick to credit the arrival of Yoenis Cespedes and the return of David Wright for the team’s strong play. Let’s not forget the return of the team’s starting catcher, too.

For what it’s worth, the Mets are 29-16 when d’Arnaud starts this year.

Last year d’Arnaud took over as the Met’s primary catcher. After a dreadful start, which saw a brief trip to the minors, he rebounded to post a .272/.319/.486 line over his final 276 PA. That brought up his season OPS to a .718 mark, good for a 104 OPS+. That was the first time since Paul Lo Duca in 2006 (102) that the Mets’ primary catcher reached a triple-digit mark in OPS+ and it was the best mark since Mike Piazza recorded a 138 OPS+ in 2002.

Piazza is the gold standard for catchers for the Mets, if not MLB. He had a 167 OPS+ in 1998 and a 155 mark in 2000. Currently, d’Arnaud sits with a .936 OPS, which translates to a 156 OPS+, albeit in just 45 games. It’s nowhere close to a full season and he may not even end the year as the Mets’ primary catcher. Kevin Plawecki has caught 61 games and may add a few more before the end of the year.

Plawecki is one of the top catching prospects in baseball. While he does not have d’Arnaud’s power, he looks like a hitter when he steps in the box and we’ve seen some line drives jump off his bat. But the difference in production between the top catchers has been stark. Plawecki, in his first exposure to the majors, has a .580 OPS in 229 PA.

Hopefully, d’Arnaud has answered the question of whether he can hit in the majors. But how about his defense? When he came up in 2013, d’Arnaud received praise for his pitch-framing abilities, in least in part due to his predecessor’s atrocious performance in this category, the alleged defensive guy John Buck.

But in 2014, d’Arnaud was poor in both throwing runners out and allowing wild pitches and passed balls. Always touted as a two-way catcher, it was hard to imagine how he earned such praise defensively as a minor leaguer. This year, in about one-third of a full season, d’Arnaud has upped his CS% from 19 to 27 percent. And in 44 percent of his innings from a year ago, he’s seen his wild pitches drop from 39 to 12 and his passed balls from 12 to one.

Pitch framing remains the strength of his game defensively, StatCorner has him ranked 12th among all backstops this year on a per-game basis, but he’s clearly made gains in the more traditional ways of viewing catchers defensively. And he was behind the plate for the first complete-game shutout of the year last night for the Mets.

We’re seeing the maturation of a star catcher right before our eyes. The Mets have had more than their share of strong backstops in their history but the two most famous ones – Gary Carter and Piazza – came to the team already formed. You have to go back to at least Todd Hundley for the last time we saw a catcher develop like this and that one seems tainted now. Before Hundley, it was John Stearns, roughly 40 years ago.

It’s easy to get caught up in all of the injuries that have befallen the club this year, or the latest soap opera created by Scott Boras. But let’s not forget the things that have gone right. And one of the things near the top of the list has been the play of d’Arnaud when he’s been on the field. It’s been a remarkable turnaround from what we saw in early 2014.

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