Flores an amazin’ story sticking with Mets
Walking through a turnstile at Citi Field this past week was like finding a Golden Ticket in a Wonka bar. Once you get through those gates, there’s no telling what you might find on the other side.
And that goes for the Mets’ players, too.
Take Wilmer Flores. If not for some suspicious-looking video of Carlos Gomez’s hip, Flores would have been wearing a Brewers uniform Friday instead of playing second base for the Mets in a crucial game against the Nationals.
In 99 per cent of those trade scenarios, Flores is a goner, and the lasting image of him would be his sobbing face on the back pages of all three New York tabloids.
Instead, something amazing happened.
Flores remained, thanks to the scuttled Gomez trade, and now has been embraced by the Mets fandom like a little brother. But Flores is no sympathy case. He earned all three of his standing ovations Friday night, then turned Panic City into Party City with a walkoff home run into the left-field deck that gave the Mets a 2-1 win over the Nationals in 12 innings.
“Unbelievable,” Flores said.
That word gets thrown around a lot. But Flores’ night — heck, his past 48 hours — was straight from the Merriam-Webster definition.
Two days earlier, the 23-year-old Flores was crying on the field, distraught about the idea of being shipped to Milwaukee after spending his entire pro career, from age 16, with the Mets.
But when Flores returned to the lineup Friday night, he was cheered from the moment his name was introduced. The first standing ovation came on a diving defensive play in the first inning. The next was for his first at-bat. The one after that was for his RBI single that put the Mets up 1-0 in the fourth inning.
“Because the kid showed that players are human beings,” Terry Collins said. “These people . . . he’s got them now.”
This relationship is no one-way street, however. After all that adoration, Flores stepped to the plate in the12th inning and hit the third pitch for the game-winner.
As Flores circled the bases, the rest of us, including those streaming from the Mets’ dugout, tried to process what was happening.
“That’s one of the best walkoff homers I’ve ever seen,” Michael Cuddyer said.
And then some. Flores trumped the imagination Friday night with a comeback story that nobody could have penned. The Mets had ticketed him for Miller Park.
And here he was, two days later, tears of joy streaming down his face and mobbed by his teammates.
“Sitting here, I’m looking at some guys who are outstanding writers,” Collins said during his post-game news conference. “You guys couldn’t come up with that.”
The non-waiver trade deadline wasn’t until 4 p.m. on Friday. And no matter what anyone might have told Flores, there’s no way he could have felt completely safe before 4:01.
They didn’t tell him last time — and even started him in Wednesday night’s game despite having a deal with the Brewers in place. That’s what caused the regrettable reality show in the first place.
As soon as that night was over, Flores did a remarkable job of moving on. Just as he had earlier this season after a critical error, he tried to shrug it off and start fresh.
“There was a lot going on,” Flores said. “But that’s in the past.”
Plenty of players say such things. Few can really convince themselves of it. But Flores honestly believes what he’s saying. And he proved it again Friday night by doing the unbelievable.