ATLANTA – David Wright‘s thumbs were killing him, courtesy of a couple of hard sinkers delivered by John Smoltz, the latest scars in what has been a career-long misadventure against the Braves’ future Hall of Famer.
Forty-three times he’d faced Smoltz in his career before yesterday afternoon, and he’d collected eight hits and four walks against 17 strikeouts. That’s the kind of history that will give a guy a splitting headache. Wright got hit No. 9 in the first inning yesterday, a ball that may have traveled 30 feet total, and felt like 450.
“If I face Smoltz 100 times,” he said later, laughing, shaking his head, “I’m going to be lucky to get a real pitch to hit maybe once or twice.”
So maybe that explains it: He was due for one. Maybe he was owed the hanging slider that Smoltz spun toward him in the top of the fifth inning with a man on first and two outs and the Braves and Mets deadlocked at 1-1. Or maybe this is just turning into the kind of year where good things are constantly destined to follow David Wright.
“The guy is amazing, he really is,” said Billy Wagner, the Mets’ closer who had his own adventures while the Mets were busy sweeping the Braves away yesterday, 3-2 at Turner Field. “He struggled early in the year and there was all kinds of panic, all kinds of ‘What’s wrong with David?’ but let me tell you this with certainty: There’s nothing wrong being David Wright.”
Wright crushed that hanging slider, sent it soaring over Andruw Jones’ head, sent the Mets flying toward Cincinnati and Pedro Day with a three-game winning streak and a freshly-doubled four-game lead in the NL East and a newly-trimmed magic number of 23, with their folly in Philly now a distant, dusty memory.
And with a legitimate candidate for league MVP anchoring their lineup.
“There are guys with crazy, sick, ludicrous numbers in our game,” Wright said with a laugh when the subject of those three magic letters was broached. “Those are MVP-caliber players. I’m not one of those guys. If I’m a leader on this team, a guy who helps us win, that’s all I really care about. That’s all I really want.”
There is no 2006 version of Ryan Howard in the National League this year, and there’s no 2007-issue Alex Rodriguez, either. There is Milwaukee’s Prince Fielder, who’s had a nice year but whose numbers have stalled along with his team, and Matt Holliday, the latest Coors Creation, and Hanley Ramirez, Florida’s do-everything shortstop, and perennial candidate Albert Pujols, recovered from an achingly slow start.
But really, the two men who best fulfill the qualities of the trophy are Jimmy Rollins, the heart, soul and engine of the Phillies who’s backed up his wintertime boasts beautifully, and Wright, who has emerged as the fuel of this Mets’ lineup at precisely the time it needed some.
After yesterday’s 2-for-4, Wright has now reached base safely in 29 of his last 53 plate appearances. He has six homers and 21 RBIs in his last 23 games. More important, the Mets’ future captain has provided a level of steadiness that was notably absent from his game during the dog days of last summer, as well as the hungry hours of October.
“I need that consistency,” he said. “You can tell me, you’re still young, you’ll grow at that, but I’ll tell you that I’m a heart-of-the-order guy on a team that wants to win a championship, so I have to just be better at it.”
The Mets need that, too. They spent the weekend disproving the mythology of momentum, arriving in Atlanta staggering and departing swaggering. As they walked off the field they left the Braves behind on life support, and as they lounged around the clubhouse a few minutes later they watched the Phillies leave the bases loaded in the ninth inning in Miami.
“We still have it all in front of us,” said Wright. “We control what we’re going to do, and that’s all you ask out of a baseball season.”
Well, that, and to be the last team left guzzling champagne. Wright’s right: It is all there in front of the Mets, a pennant, a World Series, a ring. And so is the MVP. One might not necessarily have anything to do with the other. Or they might have everything to do with one another. All there in front of them.