When Buck Showalter gathered the media in front of his customary podium at Citi Field on Thursday, he showered two unheralded members of his team with praise: Adam Ottavino and Starling Marte.
“He’s been doing it for a long time,” Showalter said of Ottavino, who was an instrumental part of Wednesday’s series-clinching win in Cincinnati. “He’s got ten-plus years in the big leagues. There’s a reason why people have coveted him and wanted him around. He’s a pro. I think that’s how you’d describe it.”
Pitching the late innings of close games takes a very specific type of person. According to Showalter, the 36-year-old Ottavino is absolutely one of those people.
“He’s very competitive,” the skipper spouted. “He’s like that furnace that you don’t realize how hot it is until you get real close to it. The more you’re around him you realize what a competitive furnace is burning underneath.
“Being a semi-local guy, he understands the dynamics of things and pitching in this area of the country,” Showalter said of Ottavino, a graduate of Berkeley Carroll School in Brooklyn’s Park Slope neighborhood. “He’s worked very hard over the years to defend himself against different types of hitters, too. I remember when he was in Colorado, pitching in that ballpark, and how well he did there.”
Then the conversation shifted to Marte, who went 3-for-5 in the team’s Thursday night shellacking of the Marlins. Marte has been a metronome for the Mets in right field and in the two-hole of the batting order. Showalter noted that the veteran outfielder is on pace to score 100 runs this season and explained what makes him so good.
“He’s a guy that we’ve all worked hard to get to know and see what he needs from us,” Showalter said. “He likes structure and knowing what’s coming. He’s got a very consistent approach and picks his spots. He just puts a lot of pressure on the other team. He knows when the odds are in his favor, he doesn’t just run blindly. Smart guy. He creates things even when he doesn’t run.”
ATLANTA ON THE MIND?
Showalter was asked if a team can truly be in a pennant race in July. He immediately snapped back that you’re in one in April, yet another addition to the Showalter catalog of quotes.
The manager said that he doesn’t just look at the team behind the Mets (in this case the Braves), he looks at every team on down to the fourth-place Marlins. A four-game sweep by the Marlins this weekend would move them to only six games back of the Mets in the loss column, creating an even more crowded NL East jumble.
“They’re a week away from being right there,” Showalter said of Miami. “We’ve got a tough four games here. I know the narrative that’s out there, and rightfully so, because [Atlanta] are world champions. But our narrative is the Miami Marlins and the challenge we have for four games.”
ROSTER MOVE
Before Thursday’s game, the Mets made a reliever swap.
Right-hander Adonis Medina was optioned to Triple-A Syracuse in exchange for fellow righty Jake Reed.
Reed, 29, has had two brief stints with the Mets this year. The first one went well, as he threw two hitless, scoreless frames on May 17 to secure a close win against the Cardinals, then blanked the Rockies in his outing on May 21. He then had two disastrous outings on June 11 and 15th, getting roughed up by the Angels and Brewers to the tune of eight earned runs in 1.1 innings. Things were better on Thursday night, when he came in with a ten-run lead and got two strikeouts over his two innings of relief to preserve the shutout.
Medina, 25, owns a 3.00 ERA in 21 innings this year, by far the most he’s ever thrown in an MLB season.
METS RENAME MAIL ROOM TO HONOR FORMER EMPLOYEE
The Mets held a pregame ceremony in their mail room on Thursday, which is now officially named the Tod Tillotson Mail Room.
Tillotson, who was deaf, began working part-time in the mail room in 1964 when he was just 15 years old. He ended up working for the Mets for 56 years, and passed away in August 2021. Tillotson was given the club’s Ya Gotta Believe Award in 2014, something that his sister Lynne said is a perfect encapsulation of Tod’s spirit.
Mets’ team president Sandy Alderson, former MLB outfielder and member of the deaf community Curtis Pride, ex-Met Art Shamsky, and several of Tillotson’s friends and family members were on hand on Thursday for the team’s touching tribute.
“He had a great sense of pride in working for the Mets,” said Lynne. “He loved the Mets and never lost faith. He had the ability to analyze during a game, often saying things just before they came out of the mouths of Keith Hernandez or Ron Darling.”
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