Oh yeah. He's in here somewhere.
Last night, the New York Mets let Lucas Duda, Nick Evans, and Chris Carter patrol the outfield . . . at the same time. The Dude, the Evans, and the Animal, left to right in the expanses of Citi Field in the top of the ninth inning.
Now, these sorts of things will happen in meaningless September games — though really, doesn’t calling something a game inherently imply meaninglessness? — but this was also a close contest the Mets were trying to win. So in the ninth, they had Elmer Dessens, maybe the most contact-reliant pitcher in baseball on the mound, they were down by just one run . . . and the outfield they chose to embrace included Nick Evans playing center field, supported on either side by Duda and Carter. This was a bad idea. The Mets effectively put on a Lady Gaga meat dress and went off to try to cuddle with bears in the woods. Those sorts of plans tend to not work out.
But last night, it did work out. Evans recorded a putout on his only chance as a center fielder, and the Mets defeated the villainously mustachioed John Axford and the Brewers on a Ruben Tejada walk-off double. It was about as much fun as September baseball between two teams well out of the pennant race can be.
Still, the Duda-Evans-Carter doomsday defense had to be the worst outfield I’ve ever seen outside of a split-squad spring training game. It was three left fielders spread out across the entire massive Citi Field outfield.
So it got me wondering about Mets outfields — as in: What’s the worst defensive outfield the Mets have ever used regularly? The best defensive outfield the Mets have ever used? Click Here to Continue Reading
Filed under Columns, Mets, Words
