Ruben Tejada will start at shortstop for the Mets on Saturday night in Atlanta, with Wilmer Flores getting his first day off since June 6 in Arizona.
On Saturday afternoon, Terry Collins said Flores is getting a mental break after his mistake in the eighth inning on Friday night which ultimately led to the tying and go-ahead runs to score.
“When we laid down the plans for this, one of the things was Wilmer’s bat had to be in the lineup. And I agree with that,” Collins explained. “He’s got the potential to be a run-producing guy. What I’m worried about a little bit right now is I want to just let his mind have a day.”
Flores’ defense has been a lot better lately. He’s made two critical mistakes in the last week, one physical and one mental – but for the most part it’s hard he’s been alright over the last six weeks.
The problem is it seems every time he makes a mistake, it seems to cost the Mets runs and/or games, as was the case on Friday night when he forgot the speed of the runner on what was really a very routine play.
He’s never going to be Andrelton Simmons or Brandon Crawford out there. And that’s fine. The club simply wants to see the routine plays made, and anything else is icing on the cake with the hopes he will make up for the plays he can’t make with his bat. While he’s hit the homers and driven in the runs, he has a .686 OPS at the end of the day. And while the defense has been alright lately, its still debatable whether or not it’s passable overall.
According to FanGraphs, Flores has -5 defensive runs saved (DRS) with a 0.3 ultimate zone rating (UZR) and has made 94.8 percent of the routine plays. The -5 DRS is the fifth-worst among qualified shortstops, the 0.3 UZR is 13th worst and he makes the fourth fewest number of routine plays.
Just Mets 