Sabrina B.

The manager was trying to protect his prized asset, lifting his .400 hitter rather than exposing him to a retaliatory baseball.

The prized asset was fuming, upset his manager was treating him like wedding-gift china, leaving him sheltered behind a pane of glass instead of allowing him to take one for the team.

So David Wright confronted Terry Collins in the home dugout. He pointed his right index finger at him. And in full view of television cameras, the best player on the Mets aired out his manager, livid at the white-glove treatment.

“You get caught up in the moment,” Wright said after the Mets’ 8-0 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers at Citi Field. “Things probably looked a lot worse than they were. Terry and I have no issues. It’s one of those things, in the heat of the moment, it probably looked worse than it really was.”

The moment that first stirred the confrontation arrived in the top of the seventh. His team already trailing by a touchdown, Mets reliever D.J. Carrasco gave up a solo home run to Rickie Weeks – Milwaukee’s third long ball of the night.

One pitch later, Carrasco responded by hitting Brewers slugger Ryan Braun. Before Braun even began his walk to first base, Carrasco was gone, tossed immediately by home plate umpire Gary Darling.

Carrasco said it was simply a sinker that got away, but Collins was not taking any chances. With Wright scheduled to lead off the next inning, Collins pinch hit for Wright with rookie Jordany Valdespin.

“In this game, there are unwritten rules,” Collins said. “And one of the unwritten rules is you hit my guy, I’m hitting your guy. They are not hitting my guy tonight. I’m not exposing him to being hit.

“He said, ‘If anybody gets hit, I want it to be me,’” Collins said. “I said, ‘I’m sorry. It isn’t going to be you.’ They’re not going to hit Jordany Valdespin. If they’re going to retaliate, they’re going to hit David Wright. And that ain’t happening tonight.”

According to Wright, Collins told him he was probably coming out of the game the following inning. But after Carrasco hit Braun, Wright assumed circumstances had changed.

“I think that my thinking at the time was Ryan gets hit, I go up there and get hit, and then everything’s settled,” Wright said.

Wright conceded that he should have picked a better spot to plead his case. He insisted that his anger was not directed at Collins and said the situation would be resolved internally.
“I love him like a son,” Collins said. “But he’s not getting drilled on this watch today.”

The controversy overshadowed a short night for Mets starter Dillon Gee, a long night for Collins. His starter allowed seven runs in 5 1/3 innings. His hitters put up nine straight zeroes against Milwaukee pitching.

Milwaukee first baseman Travis Ishikawa, a 28-year-old infielder who has never hit more than 11 home runs in a season, hit a pair Tuesday night.

The first shot landed on the opposite side of the right field wall, crashing into the yellow Wise Snacks billboard. The second shot landed on the opposite side of the left-center field wall, floating through the evening mist until it dropped in the first row of outfield seats.

By the end of the night, he had a rewritten résumé – first multi-homer game, first five-RBI game.

And when Ishikawa was finished, Gee was also finished. His 81st and final pitch of the night made it 7-0, Milwaukee. Ishikawa’s three-run blast was Gee’s cue to hit the showers. Collins came to the mound and took the ball.

WRITTEN BY MIKE KERWICK - Email: [email protected] & FULL STORY HERE