Emergency Essential

Terry Collins is a brilliant man sometimes. It’s why he manages, and I’m a blogger. Think about it … The Mets have a problem at shortstop, and are looking to get at bats from Eric Young Jr. while making sure they get all the goodness of Juan Lagares in centerfield. (And if you saw the one catch that you needed to see during spring training today, you would understand why.)

So, Collins comes up with the idea of putting Eric Young at shortstop, as he did during the ninth inning against Washington. Now, normally I’d be against taking a guy and putting him out of position, but c’mon, how much worse can Eric Young be at shortstop than Ruben Tejada? But here’s what makes Collins a genius: To avoid controversy, he frames it as “oh, I only want to see if EY can play shortstop in an emergency.”

Yeeeeeeeeeeeeah. As in “We had an emergency. Ruben Tejada got … lost. That’s it. We don’t know where he is.” Or, “We sent Ruben to the grocery store for some sunflower seeds because we ran out. It was an emergency. So he’s not playing tonight.” Emergencies. I got it.

As for the last game in Port St. Lucie, the Mets lost 4-0 to Jordan Zimmermann, who the Nationals were not afraid to have face the Mets. (The Mets, in turn, were afraid that the Nationals would figure out that Bartolo Colon throws a fastball so they put Bartolo on a minor league field.) Zimmerman blanked the Mets over five innings. Let’s see if the club takes advantage of the Nationals’ hubris and hits him around next Thursday when he faces the Mets for real. (Spoiler alert: probably not.)

The Mets meanwhile, started Cory Mazzoni … he had a triceps injury and left the game after five hitters. He’s a true Met now. But he was replaced by John Lannan who pitched well for four outs, and after the game it was announced that he was added to the 40-man roster and has earned a spot in the bullpen. Great … they’ll need him. The Mets bullpen was 10-5 with a 4.86 ERA this spring, which means watching them pitch wasn’t that much different from watching Steve Trachsel pitch in 2006. Do you want to see that? Every single night? Well get ready. Because Vic Black is in the minors, Kyle Farnsworth was released but brought back just in time to give up more runs, and Jeurys Familia is giving up singles to Bryce Harper hit so hard that Familia might be seeing it in his dreams tonight. Watch this:

The ball was hit a good 15-20 feet over Familia’s head … but did you see the flinch? Familia gave up a ball hit so hard that he flinched on a ball that was nowhere near him. Something tells me this is going to be a long April.