Those Mets

WHITE GUYS GET THE JOB DONE

NIESE, FRANCOUER, DAVIS & WRIGHT PLAY BIGGEST ROLE IN SEVENTH STRAIGHT HOME VICTORY FOR AMAZINS'

In a team with more countries represented than any other and a record amount of Latino players in particular, it was the white guys who got the job done in front of a packed house in Flushing. The Mets on Saturday witnessed a tale of two left-handers: a veteran being run out of town for being too hittable, and his young replacement, whom few on the Florida Marlins seemed to be able to hit. Nothing could have been clearer at Citi Field than the way the careers of the 23-year-old Jon Niese and the 28-year-old Oliver Perez are going in different directions. On the day that Perez packed his bags for a stint on the disabled list — and an uncertain future beyond that — Niese returned from the D.L. and gave his team something to look forward to, and the Mets rolled to a 6-1 win over the Marlins. Niese, who was activated from the 15-day D.L. on Saturday after injuring his hamstring last month, allowed one run on six hits in seven innings while striking out six and walking one. He threw an economical 90 pitches. Niese was assisted by a Mets offense that wasted no time providing him with a cushion, scoring five runs on seven hits before forcing Marlins starter Nate Robertson from the game in the fifth inning. A pair of leadoff doubles — by Ike Davis in the second and Angel Pagan in the third — led to multi-run innings, capped by a towering two-run home run by David Wright that tucked inside the left-field foul pole. Wright and Davis had been struggling. For Wright, the struggles have been season-long and unshakable; for Davis, they have been more recent, with his batting average falling from .272 to .248 over the last week. But they had breakout games Saturday. Davis had a career-high four hits in four at-bats, including two doubles, and also drove in one run and scored three more. Wright, who went 2 for 3 with a walk, drove in three runs. It was Wright’s first hit, his home run in the third, that excited the crowd at Citi Field more than anything else. For the fans, it was an unusual sight. The home run was Wright’s 10th of the year, but only his second at home. His other home run at Citi Field also came against the Marlins, but two months ago, in his first at-bat of the season on April 5. The stress-free victory was a welcome distraction from the off-the-field drama that had drawn the most interest heading into the game: the team’s stand-off with Perez, the embattled starter who was banished from the starting rotation — and then all but banished from pitching at all — but who refused to accept a minor-league assignment, as was his contractual right as a veteran. But on Saturday, the Mets and Perez finally found a mutually agreeable solution, if a bit of a dubious one. Within hours of the Mets’ needing to make a roster move to make room for Niese, Perez was put on the 15-day disabled list with knee tendinitis. Perez, who was removed from the rotation after a disastrous May 14 start in Florida, where he gave up seven runs and nine hits, including four home runs, complained of pain in his knee Friday, the Mets said. He had a magnetic imaging resonance test Friday night and was expected to travel to Port St. Lucie, Fla., on Saturday to begin rehabilitation. Soon after, he will begin what was presumed to be the real purpose of the trip: finding a solution to his pitching woes. Teams are not allowed to place players on the disabled list without a legitimate medical reason, so Major League Baseball could investigate the circumstances of this case. The Mets must submit documentation, which is usually a report from a physician and sometimes a copy of tests performed. It is highly unusual for the league office to reverse a move to the disabled list. Often, especially in cases with tenuous circumstances, teams confer with the commissioner’s office before making the move in order to ensure they can do it. Manager Jerry Manuel said Perez had not complained of discomfort before Friday, when he ran into Perez while making his rounds in the training room. “He said, ‘My knee is bothering me,’ ” Manuel said. “And I asked, ‘When did this start?’ He said after the three innings that he had in San Diego. And that was that.” Manuel acknowledged that the timing of Perez’s injury would raise suspicions, but he defended the legitimacy of the injury, even going so far as to coin a new word. “In my years that I have been here, the Wilpons, Saul Katz, Omar Minaya, they have had similar situations where they could have used what I would say would be a less integrious option,” Manuel said. “But they never chose that.” (NY Times)