Rick Pitino St. John’s overhaul is just the beginning of what’s to come

The Mets scored five runs in the first inning Tuesday night against the White Sox, after scoring only 26 runs in their first 93 first innings this season.

You can believe it was just a statistical anomaly, especially since 12 major league teams including the Chisox scored in double digits on the night, the first time since 1894.

Or you can believe in something else.

Like men who own the golden touch.

“Had to get the Mets back to winning ways,” A tweet came in shortly after the end of that innings, “Brought out the Johnnies at full strength – Storm hit to start the game – 5-0 after the first inning! LGM!”

Below the text was a picture of the new-look Saint. John’s men’s basketball team, all gathered in a suite behind home plate at Citi Field.

Of course, this text was written by St. John’s head coach Rick Pitino.

Apparently, he just has to come up and get his hands on a struggling team.

Maybe Billy Appler should take notes.

Or just be careful.

(We’ll ignore the fact that Pitino is a lifelong Yankees fan. After all, he now works in Queens. That man can read a room.)

Think of it all as symbolic.

In his daily job, Pitino completely transformed the St. Louis Cardinals in three short months. John’s roster is importing 13 new players to build around Joel Soriano, a current star.

Player no. 13 signed up Wednesday afternoon in representation of Chris Ledlum, a 6-foot-6-tall native of Brooklyn who starred at Harvard last year and was a prized graduate transfer target who initially chose Tennessee over St. . John and Indiana.

But Ledlum changed his mind last week.

And on Wednesday they officially changed their colors from orange to red, filling the Red Storm’s need at power forward, lengthening the roster and almost certainly adding another building block in the direction of the St. This is John’s first preseason Top 25 finish since 1999.

An Ivy League coach told The Post’s Zach Braziller, “He’s so big and strong it’s hard to set up a smaller guy, he’s too quick to set up a big guy.” “He retaliates to everything, he is aggressive, he is tough.

“He finished second in the Ivy League in scoring and first in rebounding, and every team’s game plan was to stop Chris Ledlum.”

The Big East was given prior notice by Pitino to systematically disassemble and reassemble rosters. This was an additional warning bell.

A coach who has known Pitino for nearly 40 years told me yesterday, “It’s scary.” “You see what he’s already done, okay? And they haven’t even had a chance to train these people yet. And he is Whatever he does, he does better than anybody.”

It’s notable that Pitino, who will turn 71 in September, has adapted so quickly to college basketball’s new normal, which is as follows: Teams are now built year-by-year, sometimes month-by-month. Months.

Too many coaches of Pitino’s generation spend a lot of time focusing on how things are and how they were before.

Pitino just went to work and in about 15 minutes he had put together a whole new team.

Yes, they are yet to play a game and are still two and a half months away from practicing together.

There are a lot of moving parts that will need to be trained.

But as the man said: “That’s what he does better than anybody.”

Damn, if he can fix the Mets offense just by buying tickets…