Captain’s Duty: A beat-up David Wright leads Mets to Game 3 win
NEW YORK — David Wright showed up at Citi Field at 11:45 a.m. Friday, more than seven hours before first pitch. And it wasn’t because he was particularly antsy for the first World Series game at his home stadium.
That’s just how much time it takes Wright to get ready to play baseball some days. He’s a player who missed 50 games in three of his past five seasons, including this year when he played only 38. He was diagnosed with spinal stenosis in May, a condition that, at the time, put his season and, heck, maybe even his career in danger.
In a parallel universe, where the Mets weren’t playing in the World Series, Wright would be relishing his down time, resting his beat-up back and not having to cover himself in bandages after games. But the Mets are playing in the World Series, and after New York’s 9-3 win in Game 3, they’re at least assured a chance to play into November.
And they wouldn’t have won Game 3 without Wright, who homered in the second inning and hit a two-run single in the sixth, accounting for four of his team’s runs. He kick-started an offense that had slumped through Game 2 and made sure there would be no sweep in this World Series.
[Related: Five key moments from the Mets’ 9-3 win in World Series Game 3]
If getting to the stadium seven hours before the game is what it takes to help his team win and to make up for a .182 batting average in the first two games of the series, then that’s what Wright would do. And if he happened to hit his first World Series home run in the process, well, heck, he’ll take that too.
“Running around the bases,” Wright said. “It’s just like floating. You can’t describe the excitement of hitting the home run, crossing home plate, high-fiving your teammates and looking up and seeing people going absolutely nuts.”
This game started like the others before it. The Royals scored first, right there in the first inning, because that’s what they do. Citi Field got quiet, because that’s what fans do when their team is down 0-2 in the World Series and the out-of-towners strike first.
But then Wright, 2-for-11 in the first two games, stepped up in the second inning and blasted Royals starter Yordano Ventura’s second pitch into the left-field seats. The stadium erupted. Orange towels twirled around in the stands. Bubbles fell from the sky. The pent up 0-2 frustration turned into pure adulation around Citi Field. All it took was one swing from their captain for the Let’s-Go-Mets chanters to believe again.
Beating the Royals isn’t as simple as a first-inning homer, though. At this point, everybody knows that. They’re like The Goonies. They never say die. So they took the lead again. But the Mets roared back. Then, with the Mets up 6-3 in the sixth, Wright delivered the dagger — the two-run single that made the game out of reach, even for the Royals.
“They answer back with everything,” Wright said of the Royals. “They find a way to score runs, especially answering after we score. They’ve done it the entire series, and they’ve been better at it than us up to this point. I think, being able to add on those extra runs late in the game, that’s what you have to do against this team. If you go later in the innings and it’s a one, two-run lead, you definitely don’t feel safe with that.”
[Related: Juan Uribe comes through for the Mets in his first at-bat in a month]
You could say Wright put this team on his back in Game 3, if not for the fact that even the thought would give him aches. Spinal stenosis isn’t something you hear about in pro sports too often. It’s a condition that causes the narrowing of the spinal cord. It’s not something common like a strained oblique, where MLB training staffs know what the rehab is like and watch players return from it all the time.
Wright’s case, for instance, isn’t as bad as David Wilson, the ex-New York Giants running back, who retired at age 24. But it’s still a condition that’s requires special attention — like seven-hours-before-the-game attention some days.
“It’s just been part of the routine to have to go through the things that I have do to get my back ready on a daily basis,” Wright said. “It takes extra time, but nobody is complaining. It’s the World Series. You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do.
“I like to take my time doing it. I don’t like to rush through anything. So I get here early, kind of relax a little bit, go through my routine, get the work done both by myself and the therapist. Get ready to go. Plus I wanted to watch some film, watch some at-bats that I’ve had where I felt better, to see if I can pick up anything mechanically and work on that.”
These are the things a leader does. The behind-the-scenes preparation that turns an injured and slumping star into a hero for a night. It’s the example-setting performance capable of waking a team out of its World Series funk.
“He just knows what he has to do,” Mets manager Terry Collins said. “So he’s in here and he does it. He knows what he has to do to keep himself ready. And these cold nights can be tough on anybody. When your back is bothering you, it can be very tough. But he hasn’t said a word.”
His play and dedication, on the other hand, speaks volumes.
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Mike Oz is the editor of Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @MikeOz
