Omar Minaya has a message for Mets fans: Don’t worry about rookie Fernando Martinez.
“Let me tell this to Mets fans: They should not be concerned,” Minaya said today on WFAN, defending how the team treated Martinez after he failed to run out an infield popup Wednesday.
Jerry Manuel said at the time Martinez “made a huge mistake,” but did not bench him nor publicly chastise the 20-year-old.
Minaya told the “Boomer & Carton Show” the situation was handled properly.
“Because he’s a kid,” Minaya said. “If I’m not mistaken, (it was) his second game in the major leagues.
“First of all, the kid has always run hard, and things are gonna happen like that when you bring up kids from the minor leagues, kids that are 20 years old.
“He’s 20 years old, he hasn’t gotten a hit. The bottom line is, the kid drew a blank.”
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It was a glaring gaffe by the top prospect on a team that often has been correctly criticized for its lack of all-out play.
Host Craig Carton said the situation required a reading of “the riot act,” but Minaya disagreed.
“Don’t get me wrong. You read a person the riot act if it’s a pattern,” Minaya said. “To do something once, a mistake, you just don’t develop young players by reading them the riot act any time they make a mistake.”
Manuel, speaking last night on ESPN 1050 Radio, jokingly blamed Nationals catcher Will Nieves for the controversy.
“I was more upset at the catcher dropping the ball, because if he hadn’t dropped it, we could have privately got (Fernando) and said, ‘Hey, this is not what we do here, this is not how you go about that, do not let that happen.’
“If he drops that ball then the whole world is against you, and it happened,” Manuel said.
“But I think for the most part he learned his lesson. It’s very painful, growth is very painful, and that’s what he’s going through at this point.”
Manuel also defended the way the lack of hustle was handled.
“In that particular situation … a young player, 20 years old, gets to the major leagues, doesn’t run out a play, I have to go back and visit his personality and what I know of him from the past,” Manuel told Andrew Marchand.
“If I felt that would be an issue for him long-term, then he would be out (of the game/lineup). But knowing him, and his behavior, what I’ve known of him the last 4-5 years, I thought that was just something that abnormally happened to him, that it was a very painful lesson for him, and that he learned from that, no doubt.”