The ball went up off the bat of Pablo Sandoval and Ike Davis came down in the Mets’ dugout with the 27th Giants’ out in his glove after doing a full stretch followed by a flip over the railing to leave two runners stranded and send last night’s game to the bottom of the ninth with the score tied.
It was tied 4-4 because Francisco Rodriguez had yielded a solo, one-out pinch homer to John Bowker in the ninth. But it was also tied because Davis, the kid who is living up to the hype that preceded him to our town, previously had hit a pair of solo dingers in the second and fourth to help his team to a 4-1 lead.
The home runs were special enough for the left-handed hitter, coming as they did off southpaw ace Jonathan Sanchez, who came into the game without having allowed a hit to lefties in 17 at bats. But Davis said that if given a choice, he would watch a replay of the catch before replays of the home runs.
“Oh, the catch,” he responded after Rod Barajas’ two-run homer in the bottom of the ninth lifted the Mets to a 6-4 victory. “Hopefully there will be more home runs than catches like that.”
There have, it turns out, been two catches like that in the kid’s first 17 games in the big leagues, or one fewer than the number of homers he’s smacked in 51 at-bats. The first catch, which came against the Cubs last month during his first series with the Mets, was neither so dramatic nor challenging as this one, on which he received aid and comfort in the dugout from Alex Cora, who grabbed him to prevent him from landing on his head.
“Alex was the hero of the game, stopping him from falling,” Barajas said. “When I saw the ball go up, I was hoping it would come back some, but [Davis] has long arms.”
Davis has long arms and maybe even longer coat tails, because since he arrived in Queens on April 19, the Mets are 12-5. Davis has seemed to solidify not only the order but a critical position in the field that had question marks all over it.
“My biceps are a little bit sore, but I was going to try and catch the ball,” he said. “With the situation in the game, I was going to take the chance.
“But you know, if it had been the first inning, I’d have gone after it, too.”
Before the game, manager Jerry Manuel talked about Davis, and how he was anxious to see him against a power lefty on the mound. After it had ended, the manager allowed that he was impressed.
“A tremendous game by Ike,” said Manuel, who stayed with Jose Reyes, Jason Bay and David Wright three-four-five in the order but moved Davis down a spot to seventh, flipping him with Jeff Francoeur. “For him to face one of the toughest lefties in the NL and hit two home runs off a power guy. . . .
“For him to respond in that manner is pretty impressive.”
The first shot, a one-out blow in the second, reached the second tier. The second, a two-out job in the fourth, went to straightaway center. The Mets didn’t even need to move in the fences for their newest homegrown phenom.
“The one to right, I knew it was gone,” the 6-foot-4, 23-year-old said. “The second one to center, I think it caught a little wind.”
The Mets lost some wind when Rodriguez blew his second save in six opportunities. But then with two out and two on, the ball went up in the air off Sandoval’s bat. Davis went for it, came down with it, and a few minutes later, the Mets came up with the game.