As many expected, the fiasco in the tunnel behind the Mets dugout between Francisco Lindor and Jeff McNeil was probably not an argument over critters.
The two middle infielders went down into the tunnel after the top of the seventh on Friday night, after a groundball led to a miscommunication between the two for the second time this season, and shortly after they disappeared into the tunnel, multiple players ran in after them, with players waving over others to come down as well.
Lindor and McNeil joked afterward that they saw a rat or a raccoon in the tunnel, and were arguing over which it was. Mets general manager Zack Scott spoke with reporters on Saturday and seemed to confirm the obvious: there was no Team Rat or Team Raccoon.
“You’d have to ask the players why they chose to handle it that way,” Scott said. “It’s definitely not how I’d go. I think what’s unfortunate is it’s a little bit bigger of a story from what it needs to be, and it takes away from what was one of our biggest wins of the year.”
It was a big win for the Mets, helped along by a game-tying home run from Lindor, shortly after he emerged from the dugout in the bottom of the seventh after the mysterious interaction with McNeil. But the bulk of the questions after the game were related to Ratgate (or Raccoongate?). McNeil even said he thought it was a possum, adding to the already existing strangeness of the Mets season so far that has included eight postponements and an imaginary hitting coach.
"Let’s just move on and not make it a bigger thing by joking around about that stuff," Scott said. "But you’ll have to ask them why they chose to do that."
Scott said any issues within the Mets clubhouse, he leaves to manager Luis Rojas to handle.
“My style working with Luis is that he’s the manager of the clubhouse,” Scott said. “That’s his role. If there’s any kind of issues…we’ll talk about them sometimes, if he wants to use me as a sounding board for some things.”
Fortunately for Rojas, Scott and the Mets, whatever tension that occurred in the dugout on Friday was quickly washed away with a game-tying homer and a walk-off win.
“It was nice to see, that’s for sure,” Scott said. “It was a key moment, an exciting moment.”
Follow Ryan Chichester on Twitter: @ryanchichester1
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