Mets make Wright decision, but questions linger
Photo credit: David Pokress | Mets COO Jeff Wilpon and GM Omar Minaya react after David Wright's beaning on Saturday.
Photos: David Wright beaned by pitch
Photos: Mets vs. Giants
What is it about the Mets that they can end the day having done the right thing, and yet we still shake our heads at how they got there?
Help me out here, folks. Does any other company/entity/person possess such a proclivity? E-mail me at kdavidoff@newsday.com. We'll turn it into a blog post.
Anyway, David Wright was placed on the disabled list Sunday, and Mets fans should exhale in relief. There won't be a repeat of last year's Ryan Church fiasco.
Nevertheless, while their final answer proved correct, the Mets' actions in the roughly 23 hours from Wright's beaning to his shelving raised more questions. Namely:
1. What took them so long? Why did they leave themselves two men short - Alex Cora, with an ailing right thumb, was unavailable - for yesterday's game?
2. Why in the world did they send a wildly uninformed Jerry Manuel to address this issue before the game?
3. What was up with Omar Minaya's postgame news conference, in which he repeatedly stressed that Wright wanted to play but that the paternal Mets insisted that their face of the franchise join fellow Core members Carlos Beltran, Carlos Delgado and Jose Reyes on the DL?
Sorry to be such a buzz kill, especially on a day when the Mets beat the contending Giants, 3-2, in a smooth game at Citi Field. Really, though, the Mets didn't inspire much confidence on a day when such a feat should've been a slam dunk.
The day began with Manuel holding his traditional pregame news conference and sounding as educated on concussions as Homer Simpson does on parenting.
Manuel said Wright, "being who he is . . . because of what he means, I think I would give him the benefit of the doubt" on whether he could play.
Benefit of the doubt? Wright isn't being accused of a crime. He has a brain injury! Most teams would agree that the player should have very little say in such a matter.
Furthermore, Manuel decided to use this opportunity to back the bus over Church again. Asked if the organization has learned from its mistakes with Church last year, the manager responded: "You have to be careful into stereotyping individuals. David is a different animal, so to speak. How he is made up is a little different than, say, Ryan Church, in my opinion. That's not to say that one is better than the other, but they're different."
In case any doubt lingered about where he was going with these "differences," Manuel said, "With Ryan, there was always something thrown from leftfield - 'We need to check that.' That made it somewhat difficult to evaluate that particular situation."
Ay yi yi. As a media type, I shouldn't complain about too much access. But the Mets should have protected Manuel and themselves and limited public comment until they came to a decision.
About that decision . . . why didn't they just DL Wright Sunday and have a new player ready to go? It's not as if this season still has meaning. Wouldn't the Mets want to exercise extreme caution with Wright?
"Earlier in the day, we had not yet come to that conclusion because we didn't have the information," Minaya said.
Meh. Playing a man short didn't cost them, and infielder Andy Green will be here Monday. Nevertheless, there didn't seem any cause for the Mets to be indecisive on this one.
No, they shouldn't be listening to Wright at all. We all know what sort of gamer he is. There was no need to sell us on the notion of Wright lobbying to play and the wise Mets doing the Dikembe Mutombo finger wag.
Alas, this is life at Citi Field. Grading on a curve, the Mets put in a brilliant day. Compared to most places . . . maybe not. But at least Wright will sit and heal.
