Goodbye and good luck to Nick Evans, the blinking reserve infielder whose eight different trips in and out of the No. 6 jersey over the last four seasons embodied its heritage as the most frequently issued number in team history. Evans was up and down so many times his number was issued to not one, not two but three different players who served entirely within his tenure: Abraham Nunez, Trot Nixon and Ramon Martinez. I have trouble believeing any of them were ever Mets.
Evans, who was released by the Mets for the millionth time following the season, accepted free agency at last and promptly signed a minor-league deal with the Pirates for whom he stands at least a slim chance of going all Heath Bell on us. I’ll remember a smashing Saturday debut in Colorado that might have saved Willie Randolph’s job for a few weeks at least but few other highlights until a modest garbage-time showing this year. His absense leaves a void in the No. 6 heritage that surely will be filled by a scrub we haven’t met yet.
If No. 6 has a counterpart on the pitching side, No. 38 would be a contender. It last belonged to lefty Chris Capuano who parlayed his irritating mediocrity in Metville into a 2-year deal with the Dodgers. I never much understood the regard for Capuano whose 5th-inning crooked numbers arrived like clockwork and guaranteed the bullpen took a beating every night he worked, and, we were reminded, he never missed a start.
That kind of reliability, hopefully with a little more success, will have to be bought anew, perhaps at the Winter Meetings beginning this weekend in Dallas.
Finally you may have seen Bobby Valentine trying on the No. 25 jersey as the new manager of the Red Sox. It’s great to see him back.
So here we are at the All-Star Break and I think we’d all agree that getting here with a prayer of contending for the playoffs without Ike Davis, David Wright, Johan Santana, and with Jason Bay having the kind of year he’s having is a kind of small miracle and for that Terry Collins has our gratitude and this team has my admiration. But let’s not kid ourselves: Only a very hot start to the second half is going to make a difference if and when the calvary returns. Sandy Alderson would be a fool not to at least entertain offers for our guys big and small in the meantime and pull the trigger if the returns blow him away. Why not? At any rate, I’m finding it difficult to imagine that the cheap, useful guys (Capuano, Isringhausen, Hairston, Paulino) stick around and I hope we can get out from under the Frankie Rodriguez deal at some point.
Don’t look now but the Mets are in full-blown struggle mode again, with a dry offense and pointless bunting punctating a punchless 4-2 loss to the rival Braves Friday. The Mets played without disappointing import Ryota Igarashi, demoted all the way to Class A St. Lucie to get his stuff together and give the Mets a righthanded bench bat Jerry didn’t bother using in Nick Evans, recalled from Class AA Binghamton. Evans has been bobbing between the minors and the Met roster now for three seasons and seemingly spent much of the last one in Jerry Manuel’s doghouse, ideal for a Met No. 6.
Yes, that’s probably going to go down as a wildly optimistic stab at the road ahead but I think I have a pretty good shot at nailing an underlying trend here: That is, we’re due. I’m thinking here that the horrifying events of the last week or so steel these guys, and they start to put together the kind of run I’d like to think they have in them.