This Week in Mets Quotes: Mets Retire Number 17

The Baseball Gods smiled upon the Mets; in other news, cats and dogs living together.

“I’ll let everybody else kind of draw the correlations. Some of the things that just go on, you just go, ‘Really?’ We kid about the baseball gods, but I don’t know sometimes.” -Buck Showalter on the Mets walk off win on Keith’s number retirement [MLB]

Scherzer on facing the Braves as you would expect from him.

“This is what you play the game for. You want to be in these situations. You want to be facing the best teams in the league. You want to be in races. You’ve got to rise to the occasion and match it.” -Max Scherzer [MLB]

Scherzer telling his teammates about the Braves’ hostile crown as you would expect from him.

“Play off of it. Bring it on.” -Max Scherzer [MLB]

Narrator: They got it down.

“Whether it was the first day of the year or tomorrow it’s going to be a challenge. They’re the World Series champs, and in the offseason they got better. So I mean, we played well against them the last time here [a 2-2 series split in May]. Now we’ve got to get it done at their home.” -Francisco Lindor [New York Post]

I didn’t really know much about Eduardo Escobar before he joined the Mets, and still don’t, but his teammates and coaches seem to love him.

“I wish sometimes everybody could see [Eduardo Escobar’s] work day, the things that he’s doing. He covers all the bases. Sometimes, the other team doesn’t cooperate.” -Buck Showalter [New York Post]

Put another one the brilliant Buck-ism pile.

“Probably the best play of the game was Guillorme’s throw. That’s one where you never ask for a refund on that, just seeing that go on. He’s something. He’s always anticipatory.” -Buck Showalter [New York Post]

Hey, you never know.

“I feel like in the minors were always taught to throw the ball; you never know what can happen at the other end of the ball. That was one of those situations when I picked it [in the dirt] I knew guys are usually going one step going in the direction to the next base. Even though he was able to get back, giving Lindor a chance to make a tag and make something happen, that is what it’s about.” -Tomas Nido [New York Post]

Going to be interesting contract negotiations to make it so.

“If they give me the chance, I’d love to stay here. My family feels comfortable here in New York. I feel comfortable here with the team. I like my teammates. Looking forward to see if I can stay here,” he added. -Edwin Díaz [SI]

Taijuan Walker has been “quietly” rock solid (3.00 FIP) given the offseason acquisitions and injuries.

“I feel confident in everything I have right now, with all my pitches. I’ve been getting a lot more ground balls this year, and it’s nice because I have a really good defense behind me.” -Taijuan Walker [New York Post]

If you don’t know, now you know.

“It doesn’t happen very often for me, but I knew on that one.” -Luis Guillmore [New York Post]

All-Star in my heart.

“I’m happy with where I am at. I didn’t have the numbers to be an All-Star, according to everybody. I am happy for the guys who made it, they deserve it, Swanson and Turner have had fantastic years. A lot of people have put up good numbers and that is good for the league.”’ -Francisco Lindor [New York Post]

Sandy on the Mets potential trade deadline strategy.

“Starting pitching is going to be very expensive to acquire at the deadline. We want to try to preserve prospects we have. We have some good ones. We traded one last year at the deadline to the Cubs, Pete Crow-Armstrong. He was hurt at the time, but today he’s ranked like 40th among all prospects in baseball. So we got to be careful about who we move and for what reasons.” -Sandy Alderson [SNY]

“The bullpen just needs to be strengthened. You’ve probably noticed, we’ve lost three or four games at least in the last 20 games with home runs late in the game after the starters depart. That can’t continue with a championship team. We can’t keep giving up bombs. To determine outcomes, is the bullpen an area we’d look at? Yeah.” -Sandy Alderson [SNY]

Remember some guys?

“I’m pretty well aware of what he means. He means so much to this organization, especially for past players. He’s just super entrenched as one of those guys. When you think of Mets greats from the past, obviously No. 17 rings a bell.” -Pete Alonso [MLB]

[Paywall] Please read the rest of this piece for way more Keith stories.

“Keith has become a bit of a lifer. People know him across the spectrum.” -Bob Ojeda [The Athletic]

“The path to the World Series championship in 1986 really started on June 15, 1983, when we got Keith.” -Ed Lynch [The Athletic]

“I was there the day he came over. He asked for No. 37; that was his number with the Cardinals. And they told him no. He looked at them funny. And they said, “That’s Casey Stengel’s number.” So now he comes over, he takes 17, and that’s getting retired also.” -Ed Lynch [The Athletic]

“It would have been devastating, because we lost Seaver at the end of ’83. Seaver was that guy on the pitching staff that led by example. And if Keith decided not to re-sign at the end of ’83, it would have been chaos around there with all those great young players coming up and no leader. It would have been a void.” -Ed Lynch [The Athletic]

“For me, it was obviously a tremendous thrill to get a chance to sit around and talk baseball with Keith Hernandez. If you would have told a 15-year-old me that one day I’d be sitting in the New York Mets clubhouse after a game talking situational hitting with Keith Hernandez? That’s crazy. Even today, it brings a smile on my face, just thinking about it. What’s happening? How did I get to this point?” -David Wright [The Athletic]

This Week in Mets Tweets

SiteBot FacePalm of the Week

“Can Lindor be consistent? Or, is Lindor a “streaky guy”? He is paid for his bat because his range at SS is maybe “at best” 33% of Ozzie Smith. Even Jose Reyes had a much, much better range. Lindor needs a lot of field work to be a great balanced player...

The Mets are very weak up the middle, defensively. But there are things the Team and Lindor can do to improve that. They don’t have a set infield. Are they as deep as they appear?” -1962fan