Those unpredictable Mets keep on churning the roster and you never know what’ll happen next.
This week, with Nimmo and Conforto out, we introduced Rajai Davis and Aaron Altherr as special guest outfielders and each of them hit a home run in their first plate appearance. Davis, who didn’t get an R designation on his nameplate despite the team already employing two other members of the Davis family (JD & Chili) wore No. 18, and Altherr took the 23 jersey most recently belonging to Keon Broxton. The Mets in the meantime signed Matt Kemp to a minor-league contract, then DFA’ed Davis to make room for the returning Conforto.
Should Kemp make it up here–and signing a veteran All-Star is becoming something of a Mets tradition given the recent history of Jose Bautista and Adrian Gonzalez and James Loney–they’ll need to find another uniform number than the 27 he’s previously worn over 1,700 games for Los Angeles, San Diego, Atlanta and Cincinnati. Juerys Familia has already kept 27 from Carlos Gomez.
The new additions and subsequent roster crush has resulted not only in Davis’ assignment but also cost Paul Sewald and Tim Peterson spots. The latter two escaped the scrutiny even of the Washington Nationals and have landed back in Syracuse.
The injuries are slowly piling up, for example. Jed Lowrie and Yoenis Cespedes might never get here. Conforto is concussed, Nimmo is out with a sore neck and Cano might have hurt himself hustling. New Mets hero Rajai Davis is here and wearing No. 18; interesting inasmuch he was issued 11 in Spring Training, but that went to Adeiny Hechavarria. And with Seth Lugo joining Justin Wilson and Luis Avilan on the shelf, Hector Santiago arrived. He’ll be wearing No. 33.
Poor Sewald. Of the six pitchers who wore No. 51 in team history none have seen more action than Sewald’s 107 games and 128.2 innings, but all of them have at least as many wins, which is to say zero. He departs as the losingest pitcher (13) without a win in Mets history.
Speaking of Rays the Mets picked up one of theirs the other night as Wilmer Font showed up, worse No. 68, and pitched okay for a few innings in a disheartening Mets loss. Font is the third 68 in Mets history: You might recall 2019 NL MVP Jeff McNeil wore it last year for the Mets; before that, it was lefty reliever Dario Alvarez.
Next up is the pending Mets debut of Jed Lowrie, issued No. 4. We’re also anticipating a potential reunion with Carlos Gomez who’s hitting well in AAA while Keon Broxton is not up here. Stay tuned!
Broxton, who lost a regular gig when the Brewers acquired Lorenzo Cain last season, wore No. 23 in Milwaukee which is available now that the Mets have released Matt den Dekker, who wore it most recently. Wahl surrenders No. 61.
In other news the Mets have signed a bunch of vaguely familiar guys to minor league deals. Veteran lefty swingman Hector Santiago (a 53 with the White Sox and Angels) walks too many guys and also gives up a lot of home runs but was once an pity-choice All-Star for the Angels. There’s Arquimedes Caminero (65 tons of American Pride), a high-heat reliever whose already collected 4 different numbers for three different teams. Rymer Liriano, Gregor Blanco and Rajai Davis can fight out the reps at Syracuse; all three are probably disappointed to see Broxton arriving.
We should see an updated roster in a month or so; but alter reader Jim noted there’s an unofficial (and probably inaccurate) roster 