Reese Kaplan -- Appreciate the Good Things When They Happen!

In last night’s game there was much to watch and enjoy, starting with the continuing fine pitching by Marcus Stroman and the until recently unfounded offense from James McCann and Dom Smith.  You see some of these performances and suddenly start to flex your fan muscles a little bit as the team is showing what was expected from the pre-season period with returning veterans and a sleuthy free agent signing.  There’s a reason the team is in first place.

Then in this game that earned the Mets a split against the 2021 powerhouse San Diego Padres, the most notable and unexpected moment came from an unlikely source, Brandon Drury.  The heretofore lower level utility guy showed up for the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Atlanta Braves, the Toronto Blue Jays and the New York Yankees before the Mets wound up signing him as an emergency backup type player who agreed to a minor league deal to toil in Syracuse.  

Now if you look at the history of his performance, he’s actually been better than you might have expected given his relatively unknown history on the playing field.  He’s had parts of seasons in the majors since 2015, but never as a steady regular.  He’s accumulated roughly 3 full seasons of playing time and for a 162 game average he logged 17 HRs, 63 RBIs and a .247 batting average.  The last number is not that impressive, but the others stand well against many major league regulars, including fellow Brando (Nimmo) who averages 17 HRs and 54 RBIs with a .263 AVG over the same 162 game period.  

Without rehashing the whole walking wounded roster the Mets bring to the field in 2021, Drury has been getting more playing time than was originally anticipated.  We’ve seen him in the outfield and the infield.  Last night he was inserted at 3B to allow Jonathan Villar to have another day to rest up from his hamstring problem and limited playing time over the past few days.  Somehow an infield featuring Jose Peraza at 2B and Brandon Drury at 3B was not what the fans were expecting back in January and February before the season began.  

Early in the game, however, Drury made himself very well known, not for his bat, but instead for a truly unusual and heads-up play at third.  With Stroman facing Padres catcher Webster Rivas, he induced him to hit a hard grounder down to third.  Not only did Drury make the play, but he had the presence of mind to bend forward to tag the bag (which was pretty impressive in its own right), but then from his knees threw across the diamond to Pete Alonso to easily nab Rivas heading there from home plate.  Watch and enjoy:

https://twitter.com/i/status/1401653520244215808

Wow!

While Drury, Peraza, Billy McKinney, Mason Williams and others are on incredibly short leashes if and when the regulars return to the lineup, you really just have to take your hat off and bow at baseball excellence when you see it.  The Mets needed a win, Stroman needed to get out of the inning and Brandon Drury demonstrated what’s possible when you have your mind on delivering the best results possible.