The New York Mets outfield has been decimated. Michael Conforto is on the IL with a concussion. Brandon Nimmo has been dealing with a neck injury all season long, and finally, push came to shove. With him no longer being able to play through it, he went to the IL. Jeff McNeil had an abdominal injury and later a leg injury leading to his landing on the IL.
That’s the Mets starting outfield. Teams just don’t win games when their entire starting outfield is on the IL. For tat matter, teams do not win games when their three best hitters are on the IL. It doesn’t matter if it is the Marlins or the Nationals, you just don’t win those games.
That is, unless, other players on the team step up and produce.
The aforementioned injuries created the biggest opportunity for Juan Lagares. Unlike the other players on the Mets roster, he’s a great defensive center fielder. With the injuries, it’s his glove that is going to keep him in the lineup. For him to stay there, he’s going to have to hit. That’s something which hasn’t happened much in his career and especially not this year.
That was the backdrop when he stepped to the plate on Wednesday night. With the bases loaded, two outs, and Sean Doolittle, the one good reliever on the Nationals, on the mound, the expectation was Lagares was going to make an out sending the game into the ninth inning with the Mets down 1-0.
Instead, Lagares would rip a bases clearing double to left center giving the Mets a 3-1 lead. With the hit, Lagares is now 3-for-5 off Doolittle in his career with a double and five RBI. In retrospect, maybe what he did wasn’t that unexpected.
Now, what Rajai Davis would do was completely unexpected.
Prior to the game. the Mets would place Nimmo on the IL, and the team would call-up Davis from Triple-A Syracuse. With the Syracuse Mets in Lehigh Valley, transportation options were severely limited. Really, this left him with the option of getting an Uber to drive him over two hours to get to Citi Field.
Davis arrived during the third inning of the game, and he would get lost inside the ballpark. Finally, he found the clubhouse and put on his uniform. What was seemingly minutes after he entered the dugout, he was called upon to pinch hit.
The Connecticut native who grew up a Mets fan would hit the first pinch hit home run in a 14 year career which spanned 4,582 plate appearances.
Suddenly, a disappointing Mets team who seemed on the brink of disaster now seems to be on the cusp of pulling off a run like what we’ve seen this team do in 1999. If that does happen, it will be because unlikely heroes like Lagares and Davis stepped up and delivered huge hits, and that is why it is the Neon Moment of the Week!
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