Jeff McNeil didn’t hesitate for a moment when given the choice of which aspect of his game to talk about first.
“Let’s talk about defense,” he joked. “I can never talk about it.”
McNeil continued his hot-hitting with three RBI’s, but he also made two excellent defensive plays to help the Mets to a 7-6 10-inning win over the Cardinals on Thursday.
He jumped into foul territory and doubled Tommy Edman on second base for the last out in the seventh inning, then added a loading/sliding catch an inning later.
“I thought the first 10 rows was wrong, and then it comes back into play. So I was ready to climb the wall and take it off the stands and it just happened to fall back on fair ground,” said McNeil “I played a lot of outfield in college” [at Long Beach State] and got tons of reps there and tons of reps in the minor leagues.
“For me it’s that they hit the ball in the air and you’re going to catch it. Not too hard, just go out and try some cool plays.
When asked about McNeil’s two-way game, Buck smiled at Showalter and said, “What about the match he had?”
“I mean, he’s not the Flying Squirrel for nothing. He makes incredible plays not only at second base, but also in left field. He’s doing an incredible job for us offensively and defensively,” said Pete Alonso. “There are a lot of things in the game that are super specialized now, but he’s just a ball player… a really great ball player.”
Starling Marte arrived at the match after a bereavement leave following the death of his grandmother. He is expected to be activated Friday in Colorado, according to Showalter, who added, “Between air travel and customs and also the state of mind we assume he is in, trying to give him that space.”
The Mets all wore post-game T-shirts in honor of Eduardo Escobar for achieving 10 years of Major League service time. Showalter said Max Scherzer led the presentation to Escobar.
No batters were hit by pitches by either team, as both sides were warned after Mark Canha was drilled out in Wednesday’s game, one of three Mets knocked out in the game.
“I will never understand why we were warned [Wednesday] night. Is there something wrong? Why are we being warned?” Showalter said before the match. “It would be like a car cut you off, but we’re going to warn you both because you’re probably crazy.”
Showalter then started ranting about traffic in New York, saying it took him an hour and 20 minutes to get to the stadium. He also joked that he changed the voice on his Waze navigation app, saying that the male British voice giving directions is “very smug”. He also said his daughter uses Cookie Monster’s voice in her car for his grandson.
“You can’t get mad at Cookie Monster,” Showalter said.
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