The Mets abruptly released veteran reliever Mike Matthews 27 on Monday and called up Norfolk lefty Royce Ring to the big club. Ring, who arrived in the refreshing 2003 trade that sent Roberto Alomar to the White Sox, suited up Tuesday in No. 22, which last belonged to lefty Al Leiter.
As reported by Marty Noble at MLB.com, Ring said he won’t be confused with his predecessor: “I don’t have a cutter, I’ll tell you that.” Over the weekend, a sore muscle put starter Kaz Ishii 23 on the disabled list; in his place the Mets recalled Jae Seo, who remains in No. 26.
Well, the Willie Randolph Era is off to a rotten start with enough caught stealings, caught lookings, walk-offings, bad-callings, grand-slammings, double-plays and double-switch debacles to last a while already. To that we add an emergency start Saturday by Aaron Heilman 48, back from Norfolk much sooner than expected given Mike Cameron’s rush to return from an injury and subsequent retroactive DLing.