{"id":722,"date":"2007-07-12T18:22:14","date_gmt":"2007-07-12T18:22:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beta.mbtn.net\/?p=722"},"modified":"2013-11-30T18:25:03","modified_gmt":"2013-11-30T18:25:03","slug":"franco-released","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/?p=722","title":{"rendered":"Franco Released"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The expected recall of\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/mbtn.net\/player\/milledge-lastings\"><strong>Lastings Milledge<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0for tonight\u2019s second half opener accompanied the unexpected release of\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/mbtn.net\/player\/franco-julio\"><strong>Julio Franco 23,<\/strong>\u00a0<\/a>the Mets\u2019 elderly pinch hitter. It\u2019s not like Franco had earned his slot this season, it\u2019s just that, as with the pending Henderson story, the Mets tend to have more tolerance for struggles with track-record holding veterans and figureheads as they\u2019ve shown recently. I guess this is life in the Omar Era. Milledge by the way returned wearing\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/mbtn.net\/number\/44\"><strong>No. 44<\/strong><\/a>and in possession of the same nice swing he first impressed with a year ago during Spring Training. This phrase has been uttered an aweful lot this season but\u00a0<em>perhaps that\u2019s just the spark we need.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Speaking of sparks,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/mbtn.net\/player\/valentin-jose\"><strong>Jose Valentin 22<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0was wearing a cast on his pinky and couldn\u2019t play tonight, allowing\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/mbtn.net\/player\/gotay-ruben\"><strong>Ruben Gotay 6<\/strong>\u00a0<\/a>to further his case as the best option at the keystone. Mets officials say the injury came as the result of intervening in \u201can altercation\u201d while The Internet appears to believe he broke it in a punching a wall. Let\u2019s call it a\u00a0<em><strong>Wall-tercation<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0and perhaps, a karmic comeuppance for Valentin who a year ago was the guy the stealing the starting second base job from an underperforming and injured incumbent.<\/p>\n<p>The Henderson story by the way appeared to have leaked sooner than the Mets would have liked. (<a href=\"http:\/\/mbtn.net\/player\/randolph-willie\"><strong>Willie Randolph<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0in fact appeared perturbed it leaked at all). Today team officials confirmed something was up but wouldn\u2019t release details. It appears possible that\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/mbtn.net\/player\/johnson-howard\"><strong>Howard Johnson 52<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0will become batting coach while Henderson assumes HJojo\u2019s role as first base coach. We should know Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The expected recall of\u00a0Lastings Milledge\u00a0for tonight\u2019s second half opener accompanied the unexpected release of\u00a0Julio Franco 23,\u00a0the Mets\u2019 elderly pinch hitter. It\u2019s not like Franco had earned his slot this season, it\u2019s just that, as with the pending Henderson story, the Mets tend to have more tolerance for struggles with track-record holding veterans and figureheads as &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/?p=722\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Franco Released&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[168,211],"class_list":["post-722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-julio-franco","tag-lastings-milledge"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=722"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":723,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722\/revisions\/723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mbtn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}