Gil Would Have Never Stood For This

When Gil Hodges managed the Mets, he would randomly go up to players in the dugout just to see if they were paying attention to the game. He wanted his players to have their heads in the game at all times. There was a moment tonight that proved that one of our players did not have his head in the game.

Seventh inning, Jake Marisnick steals second. He gets to the bag safely before Ruben Tejada’s tag. In a brief moment, perhaps too brief, Marisnick’s hand comes off the bag while Tejada’s mitt is still on him. Marisnick’s foot is ever so slightly off the bag, but Tejada probably couldn’t see that. But what should have been obvious to Tejada is that he had the tag on Marisnick after his hand comes off. Now one would think Tejada’s reaction would have been to at least argue with the umpire and/or try to make his manager think about challenging that play instead of staring at Pat Hoberg as if he just took away Tejada’s binky. But Tejada took the latter route and guess what? Marisnick came around to score. It was an important run in what turned into a 3-2 loss, and Tejada doesn’t even think about challenging the play. Maybe the call stands, but I am of the impression that the stolen base would have been reversed. And that changes the entire damn game. Two runs score in the seventh that may not exist if Tejada doesn’t stand there like a lost child.

And this isn’t on Collins. The play was so close and so isolated that Tejada was the only person that would have seen immediately that it was a play worth challenging. And if he makes more of a big deal, maybe he gets Collins out of the dugout. But he didn’t, and the Mets paid for it as Marisnick scored on a throwing error by Anthony Recker while stealing third, and Adeiny Hechavarria doubled home another run with two outs. Marlins win by a run.

The sad thing is that nobody will talk about this because everybody is too busy complaining about the tying run that didn’t score when Marcell Ozuna threw out David Wright at the plate by three miles in the eighth, yet Jarrod Saltalamacchia had his foot in front of most of the plate.

Look, the new “block the plate” rule is stupid. But common sense prevailed on this one. Saltalamacchia didn’t have his entire body in front of the plate giving Wright no recourse. He didn’t block the entire plate and the immediate area on either side with his shin pad. Wright still had a lane to score, albeit small. It really would have been a chintzy call to make against Saltalamacchia at that point. He didn’t block the entire plate, or that’s at least how it looked to me. (Ozuna would later make me miserable by throwing out the tying run at the plate to end the game with a laser beam that nailed Kirk Nieuwenhuis.) But the Mets were all up in arms about the Wright play, including Sandy Alderson.

But it might not have come to that if Tejada has his head in the game. As for Collins, he had no way to do anything at that moment. However he can make this a teaching moment by benching Tejada on Saturday as a gentle reminder to keep his head in the game. It would also give him a rest to shake off a 5-for-35 slump. But I’m not counting on any accountability from Terry. I don’t know how Tejada went from a guy who was pretty much gone in the off-season to the guy that only has to breathe to keep his job, but Wilmer Flores has to turn into Superman to get in the lineup. And even then.