Meet The Mess
What the hell happened in the Mets dugout/tunnel on Friday night?
Despite being just a game over .500 in a season that's already featured plenty of ups and downs, the 2021 New York Mets do not appear to be the same old New York Mets. Sure, they've had some bad losses and have left a million runners on base, but at least there hasn't been any typical Mets, clown-show moments.
That was right up until Friday night, when, in the bottom of the seventh, trailing 4-2 to the Arizona Diamonbacks, the Mets headed back to the dugout to bat and something very strange happened. Unfortunately, no one has a damn clue what exactly happened, but whatever it was caused Michael Conforto and Dom Smith to sprint down the dugout steps and into the tunnel to stop it. Watch the weird clip:
What the hell? There are only a handful of things multiple dudes move that quickly for, and a few of them I can't mention. One of them, though, is to break up a fight between your buddies, which is the conclusion all the Twitter sleuths immediately jumped to.
Who was the fight between, you ask? Despite having no proof, social media is convinced it was between Francisco Lindor and Jeff McNeil, and it was over mutliple on-the-field miscommunications between the shortstop and second baseman on Friday evening. That, coupled with the fact both are struggling at the plate, apparently caused tensions to boil over.
Incredibly, in his very next at-bat minutes later, Lindor launched a two-run bomb, snapping him out of an all-time funk and tying the ball game, 4-4:
This only added a log to the Lindor-and-McNeil-definitely-fought fire, the theory being that the tussle quite literally lit a fire under Lindor. By the way, the very next inning, a fly ball was hit to shallow center, and Lindor called off McNeil, who had no business being near the fly ball with the shortstop calling for it. It was very strange.
The Mets went on to win 5-4 in extra innings, another indicator that perhaps these really aren't the same old Mets. Both Lindor and McNeil were asked about the awkward situation after the game, though, and they each ran with some fake rat/racoon story in the hopes of squashing the fight story that will surely dominate New York sports talk radio on Monday:
So yeah, that's the fakest story of all time. Or, an argument over a rat or a racoon is some sort of baseball mob code for punching each other in the face. Hey, at least Mets fans can say this - guys who are fighting each other in the tunnel very obviously care about what's happening. You'd rather have that then a bunch of dudes who couldn't give a damn about being down 4-2 late in the game. These two were clearly pissed, they let the rage out and then Lindor went out and helped them win the damn game. And now it's Jackie Moon, everybody love everybody time. Brilliant stuff, all around.