Wright defies critics, plays hero in Game 3 win
NEW YORK — David Wright arrives in the a.m. every game day to do his back rehab. After the game is over, you see he is wrapped up, almost like a mummy. And while he endures, his game is picked apart by critics. He doesn’t have the power he used to have, they point out. Look, they say, he’s throwing sidearm to compensate for the pain.
Oh, Wright does a lot for the continual back discomfort, there’s no question about that. He leaves his model bride Molly behind very early on game days, arriving at the ballpark in the a.m., hours before anyone else. By game’s end he is wrapped up, almost like a mummy.
Anything to keep playing for the Mets. His Mets.
When the ugly diagnosis came back — spinal stenosis — nobody would guarantee he’d even make it back this season. The Mets, the most optimistic predictors of time-off timetables in history, weren’t making book on this one.
The back was bad. But no one ever went wrong betting on Wright’s heart.
No matter what the doubters say, he remains quite capable, and here Friday Wright came up with a signature game, a four-RBI day when the Mets needed it most, when their backs were pressed up almost up against the Citi Field Bridge. It was a must-win game, and Wright made sure, they got back into this World Series, delivering a two-run home run off Royals starter Yordano Ventura and a two-run single off Royals reliever extraordinaire Kelvin Herrera to ice things later in the 9-3 Mets Game 3 victory that narrowed their deficit to 2-1 in games.
His in-laws, Molly’s parents, as predictably nice as you’d imagine, noted to me en route from Kansas City (I ran into them on a stopover in Detroit) that the Mets also lost World Series Games 1 and 2 in 1986 by one run, and six runs, respectively. These two folks from Manhattan Beach, Calif., as sunny a place as you are going to find in the continental United States, were suggesting that World Series glory was still doable.
That they are eternal optimists does not surprise me. Wright is the guy who signed to stay eight more years with the Mets when they resided at the intersection of Flushing and rock bottom. Now there’s a fellow who believes.
Deep down, he always figured he’d make it back, too, when everyone else was shrugging their shoulders. He listened as closely as brilliant Los Angeles back doctor Robert Watkins (I know, he went to him once) as anyone ever has. He does everything he’s supposed to, exactly when he’s supposed to. And it’s a lot.
While he was out in Los Angeles, he visited another New York baseball hero, Don Mattingly, who experienced back trouble around 30 years of age, too. And Mattingly told him there’d be days he’d wake up, and wouldn’t feel he could do anything. And he should go ahead and take those days as days off.
Wright heard Mattingly, but of course that doesn’t apply to the World Series. He has waited all his years to be here, and be here for the Mets, and there is nothing that would stop him. He hasn’t said a word about his trouble, or his pain. He is bearing it, and grinning, all the way through October.
He wasn’t supposed to not to be able to turn on gas anymore, but the homer into the left field bleachers, which gave the Mets a 2-1 lead in the first, came on a 95.6-mph fastball from Ventura, the fastest pitch he’s hit out since 2013. Then five innings later, Herrera was summoned into the game for the express intent to whiff Wright with the bases loaded and one out, and instead Wright greeted him by lining a single to center to let the Mets, his Mets, live another day.
When Wright left LA after rehabbing there for months, he entered Terry Collins’ office, they both smiled about how well the team was playing, and he told Collins he could sit him if he wanted. And Collins responded, “Hell, I’m not sitting you.” Or words to that effect.
The Mets were doing all right without their captain, but they didn’t seem completely whole without him. He is their unquestioned leader, and his return was welcomed by everyone around the club, everyone who wanted to see the Mets win, and see the longtime Met be a part of it.
And he made sure they won Friday night, in a Game 3 they trailed twice early, registering the second-biggest RBI game in Mets World Series history (Rusty Staub had a five-RBI game in 1973), and ensuring that the Mets, his Mets, would right remain in the hunt for the 2015 World Championship.
David Wright watches his two-run home run early in Game 3. (USATSI)
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