PORT ST. LUCIE – On the Mets’ first day of live competition, Jose Reyes was picked off twice and Kaz Matsui misplayed a grounder at second base.
Good thing it was only an intra-squad game.
The Mets’ middle infield combination is critical to their fortunes, but sometimes it’s easy to forget that it’s also a combination in transition. Reyes is just 21 and is still learning how to be an efficient offensive player. Matsui, of course, is older, but the former shortstop is undergoing a crash course in second base defense.
Their education was fully on display yesterday. Despite Reyes’ baserunning blunders, he singled and walked to reach base in the first place. And after being picked off, he also got some counsel from baserunning expert Carlos Beltran.
“He said I look a little aggressive, so I have to slow down a little bit and be more relaxed in my body,” Reyes said.
Matsui rebounded from his first-inning misplay to turn a nifty double play just one frame later.
In the first inning, Reyes singled to right. The speedster, who has been successful on 32 of 37 career steals, was promptly picked off by pitcher Bob Keppel. Five innings later, Reyes walked and was picked off by Matt Lindstrom.
“I was a little excited,” Reyes said. “I take too much of a lead. The pitcher threw quickly.”
Reyes later spoke to Beltran (the shortstop said Beltran talks to him nearly every day about all things baseball) and then downplayed the pickoffs, saying, “When the games start, I’ll be a little more comfortable.”
Willie Randolph was hardly panicking over Reyes’ baserunning adventures.
“I noticed he had a big lead but that’s fine. He just got out there too far and he took off,” Randolph said, laughing. “He’s excited, man. That’s the way I look at it – he’s excited. I don’t see anything wrong with it. If he’s doing that every day, then I think I’ll get a little nervous, but I just think he was excited. I was fine with that.
“I think I chuckled one time because he got out there so quick, I was like, ‘Where you going?’ But I got a chuckle out of it, because you can see it’s exuberance. He just wants to go. . . . I think it was kind of refreshing to see him wanting to get out there and run.”
Matsui had problems with his first test at second base. In the opening inning, Ron Calloway bounced a chopper between first and second. Matsui chased after it but couldn’t glove it, the ball skipping past him into right field. It was scored a single, but Matsui should have made the play.
“I think he just took his eye off the ball for a second,” Randolph said. “It was a catchable ball.”
Said Matsui: “I still need to adjust myself to those situations in a case-by-case situation – ground balls where I need to speed up and ground balls where I can take my time.”
But Matsui said the toughest adjustment about switching to second base is turning the double play (unlike shortstop, a second baseman is blind to the runner coming behind him), and in the second inning, he made it look easy. With Jason Phillips on first, Chris Woodward grounded to third. David Wright fired to Matsui at second, who relayed to first for the 5-4-3 double play.
Bench coach Sandy Alomar Sr., who said Matsui did “an outstanding job” at second base, told him a couple innings later that the double play was good. Call it part of the first-day learning for the Mets’ middle infield.
