The Mets and Marlins’ first game on Tuesday was a resumption of the now-infamous April 11 game where Marcus Stroman threw all of nine pitches, all in the pouring rain, before the game was delayed and finally postponed.
Because it had started, it went in the books as a suspended game, so the replay Tuesday was set to be nine innings while the originally scheduled game, now the nightcap, was going to be seven under MLB’s current doubleheader rules. Sal Licata and Jerry Recco had something to say on that on WFAN earlier Tuesday morning:
Yet, that wasn’t the weirdest thing that did, or could have happened, in Game 1, based on the lineups and situations from the original game. You expect some names to be different after 4 ½ months, but this game might have gone to the extreme – as it saw one player technically play two games for two different teams on the same day, and another make his MLB debut a month after (and four months before) he really did it.
The former is Javier Baez, who pinch-hit for Jeff McNeil in the eighth inning with the Mets trailing 5-1. Baez was a Cub on April 11, and was 1-for-4 with a solo homer in Chicago’s 7-1 loss to Pittsburgh that day. However, the record books will also show he was hit by a pitch, rapped an RBI single, and scored the game-winning run for the Mets that day as well, thanks to the resumption.
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That accomplishment is incredibly rare – in fact, in an actual chronological day, it has only happened twice, with three players; the first was back in 1922 when, in the middle of a doubleheader, the Cardinals and Cubs made a deal, St. Louis sending Cliff Heathcote to Chicago for Max Flack, and the two players simply switched dugouts, each playing one game for each team.
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The Mets have part of the other instance: August 4, 1982, when Joel Youngblood singled for the Mets against the Cubs in Chicago that afternoon, was pulled from the game and dealt to Montreal, and then appeared for the Expos that night in Philly, rapping a pinch-hit single against Steve Carlton - until Tuesday, the only man to have a hit for two different teams in two different cities in the same day.
The other major oddity comes from Miami’s Bryan De La Cruz, who wasn’t a Marlin or even a major-leaguer on April 11, but will technically see that as the date of his MLB debut…3 ½ months earlier than it actually happened.
De La Cruz was placed in the resumption as a replacement in center field for Starling Marte, who was of course traded to Oakland mid-season. When the game originally started, De La Cruz was at the Astros’ Alternate Site, and he became a Marlin when he was one of two players acquired from Houston for Yimi Garcia at the trade deadline.
He made his MLB debut with Miami on July 30, two days after being acquired…but then debuted again the minute he stepped on the field Tuesday, as April 11 will go down as his actual debut date.
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His situation was actually one of several funny moves for the Marlins, as since April 11, they had lost Marte, Corey Dickerson (dealt to Toronto in June), Starling Marte (traded to Oakland in July), Adam Duvall (dealt to Atlanta in July), Chad Wallach (designated for assignment and claimed by the Dodgers in July), and John Curtiss (sent to Milwaukee in July) – so they had to replace their entire outfield and both members of their battery.
Marte was replaced in the field by De La Cruz but in the batting order by catcher Alex Jackson…who was the player acquired from Atlanta for Duvall!
If you need any more clarity on this situation, please contact Kevin Bacon, because this is just way too many degrees of separation.
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