General manager Sandy Alderson hopes Travis d’Arnaud’s stay in the minors doesn’t last long.
“I think Travis needs to go down without the pressure of playing every day at the major league level, get his swing back and get his confidence back,” Alderson said Tuesday. “I expect he’ll be back, hopefully relatively soon.”
The decision to demote d’Arnaud was understandable, especially considering his OPS had actually decreased from a miserable .548 a year ago to .544 this season.
Alderson said he wasn’t panicking about the 25-year-old.
“Sometimes we expect guys to come up and everything will click immediately with a young player and it’s nothing but an upward trajectory,” Alderson said. “That doesn’t always happen. I think we have to recognize that and be a little patient. As far as we’re concerned, there’s no reason Travis can’t come back and be a very productive player for us.”
The Mets also are hoping the fact d’Arnaud’s Triple-A at bats were limited by injuries may have impacted his development.
“He didn’t hit all that well last year, but you never know, an offseason, a spring training and somebody comes back and makes a substantial improvement,” Alderson said. “In our case, we went with him to see what would happen and it hasn’t worked out the way we would have hoped or he would have hoped.”
Taylor Teagarden made his first start with the Mets during Tuesday’s 6-2 win over the Brewers, going 1-for-4 with a grand slam.
After the game, the Mets activated Gonzalez Germen from the 15-day DL and optioned Scott Rice to Triple-A Las Vegas.
Manager Terry Collins had Ruben Tejada back at the top of the lineup Tuesday, bumping Matt den Dekker down to eighth.
“He did exactly what we wanted him to do,” Collins said after the shortstop went 1-for-3 with a walk. “We know he can do it. Are we going to leave him there? I don’t know.”
After hearing San Francisco manager Bruce Bochy believed Zack Wheeler may have hit Hunter Pence on purpose on Sunday, Wheeler said that wasn’t the case.
“I don’t want any guys to get hurt because it wasn’t on purpose,” Wheeler said. “I think it had happened before to Pence, but I had no reason to do it. He was leading off the third inning. If they thought about it, I think they’d realize that.”
Daniel Murphy spoke at the White House on Monday about being a working father after he missed two games following the birth of his first child.
“I got the point across that being with my son is where my wife and I were needed,” said Murphy, who hit a two-run homer. “It was cool. I didn’t feel like it was overwhelming, other than my lack of experience as a working dad. It was enjoyable.”
Den Dekker’s off day was also eventful. He had his first experience with a horse and carriage when he and reliever Vic Black were in Central Park on Monday.
And it wasn’t typical.
“Me and Vic were kind of walking around right on the edge of Central Park, right off Fifth Avenue,” den Dekker said. “He was on the phone and I looked up to see a horse carriage coming pretty quick.”
The horse, with the carriage still attached, had no rider.
“I haven’t been in the city that much, so I didn’t know how fast they went, but as it got closer I was like ‘It’s going way too fast’ and realized there was no one on the carriage driving it,” den Dekker said. “Then I saw a guy in a bike chasing it down. He jumped off his bike, sprinting and jumps onto the horse, I guess to try to stop it and it hit a cab. … It hit the cab and kept going.”
Asked if he was in danger of being hit, den Dekker said: “I saw it coming, so I could have gotten out of the way.”