Ex-Met Gomez shows flashes of talent
Milwaukee Brewers' Carlos Gomez can't come up with a ball hit by the New York Mets' Ruben Tejada in the seventh inning of a baseball game. (June 7, 2011) Credit: AP
MILWAUKEE
It was Tony Bernazard's vision for Citi Field, the cavernous ballpark he helped design as a top lieutenant to chief operating officer Jeff Wilpon. On Opening Day 2009, the Mets would have Carlos Beltran, the $119-million franchise player, positioned in centerfield, with youngsters Fernando Martinez and Carlos Gomez flanking him.
That's a big reason why Citi Field looks as it does today. The dimensions were not drawn up with any consideration for David Wright's swing because the dream was to have this athletic trio patrolling the huge Citi lawn for years to come.
While the stadium's blueprint stayed the same, Bernazard's dream ended on Feb. 2, 2008 -- the day the Mets agreed to trade Gomez and four pitching prospects to the Twins for Johan Santana. It was a no-brainer. As much as Bernazard, the Mets' former VP of player personnel, loved Gomez, there was no hesitation in acquiring a two-time Cy Young winner.
"We liked him a lot," assistant GM John Ricco said of Gomez this week. "He certainly had the tools and he was pushed pretty aggressively through our minor-league system at that point."
Three years later, Gomez is in Milwaukee, his second team since leaving the Mets. And in case anyone forgot what Gomez is capable of defensively, he made two spectacular catches Tuesday that saved at least two runs. In the fifth inning, Gomez was playing shallow with pitcher Chris Capuano at the plate, and had to sprint a long way to chase down his deep fly before crashing hard into the centerfield wall. But the top highlight came in the seventh, when he leaped above the fence to rob Beltran of a two-run homer.
"That was a great catch -- a great catch," Beltran said. "It was a ball that stayed up in the air for a long time and that gave him the opportunity to get to it and time his jump perfectly.
"It's a reaction thing. Once you know your ballpark, and where you're playing, it's not complicated."
The next day, as the Mets stretched before batting practice, Gomez visited with his former teammates and shared a few laughs with Beltran about the catch. "I know they're my friends," Gomez said afterward. "But even if he was my son or my brother, I've got to catch that ball. That's my job."
That raw athletic ability is what made Gomez such an attractive prospect, but it probably did him no good to be rushed to the majors in 2007 at the age of 21, when he clearly had no clue at the plate. That was the Bernazard Doctrine under Omar Minaya -- always pumping the accelerator for the team's best prospects -- and it backfired with Gomez.
During that season, he had two homers, 12 RBIs and 12 stolen bases in 58 games while playing every outfield position. But he also batted .232 with 27 strikeouts in 125 at-bats.
That all-glove, no-hit label has stuck with him. He peaked with the Twins in 2008, when he batted .258 with seven homers and 33 stolen bases in 153 games, but that included 142 strikeouts. This season, he's hitting .220 with 49 strikeouts.
"What I see with Gomez is that he tries to do too much," Beltran said. "In this game, you need to be under control. There were times when he was here, maybe he was 2-for-2 in a game, and his third at-bat would be a different approach than the first two because he wanted to do something bigger, or hit a home run."
Gomez was his excitable self this week around his former team, and he says he still roots for the Mets when watching them on TV. Still, that feels like a long time ago. "Oh man, I'm only 25 years old," Gomez said. "I feel like I've been here forever. But every day, I learn something new. And it's not how you start, it's how you finish."
