It just wasn’t going well for Wilmer Flores a week and a half into the regular season.
Failed double play turns, three errors, and his trademarked poor footwork rearing it’s ugly head. On top of all of that, he just wasn’t hitting. In fact, he was missing at a disturbing rate at the plate.
On Tuesday, he was hit by a pitch from Phillies starter David Buchanan. He stayed in the game, but despite being ok, Terry Collins said after that game he would start Ruben Tejada the following day.
Collins said he had planned to start Tejada regardless of what happened to Flores on Wednesday.
It stood to reason. Tejada is simply the better defender, and with a groundball pitcher in Jon Niese on the hill that night, it made sense to have the better defender behind him.
The irony is, Tejada made an error on a groundball to his right that night.
The next day, Flores was back in there, and seemingly the light went on.
Flores went 1-for-4 with a three run home run off of groundball specialist Jarred Cosart, spoiling an otherwise solid night for the right-hander and tying the game in what seemed like a lifeless night for the Mets offense.
On Friday night, Flores went 1-for-4, but he delivered what seemed like a put-away blow for the Marlins in the sixth inning when he hit a two-out, two-run home run in the sixth inning to make it 5-0 Mets.
All-in-all, Flores has had a big weekend against Miami. He has two home runs, five RBI.
It’s almost as if sitting on Wednesday was a wakeup call for Flores, either consciously or subconsciously. He looks more relaxed at shortstop. his swing is much more controlled at the plate, and he’s begun to make more authoritative contact on pitches inside the strike zone – he was struggling to make any sort of contact on strikes before Thursday.
He’s beginning to do what the Mets really need him to do. It’s critical he outhits his defensive deficiencies, and he just wasn’t doing that over the first week of the season. It’s only three games, but he’s starting to do that and ease concerns about him and the immediate term of the position.
But perhaps most important, he’s starting to do what he needs to do for himself, and reestablish the confidence he had been expressing from last September all the way through Spring Training.
Just Mets 