After Jose Reyes made an error in the seventh inning of yesterday's game against the Yankees, he threw a temper tantrum that would make Tanner of the Bad News Bears proud. While Jose Molina was batting, he threw his glove and sunglasses to the ground. Luckily the ball settled into Ryan Church's glove and the shortstop wasn't needed to do anything that required a glove. Keith Hernandez and Gary Cohen, announcing the game in New York and transcribed by Neil Best, were not pleased by Reyes's display.
Cohen: Reyes has taken his glove off and is standing hands on hips out there, with the glove on the ground. That's something you don't like to see. That's not a good look.
John Delcos of the Journal News didn't care for the display either.Hernandez: Well, he's got to get over that. Enough babying going on now. He's a grown man, he's been around a long enough time. Take off the kid gloves.
He does these things because the Mets let him. He loses focus because the Mets don't do anything about it when he does.
Some players have said Willie Randolph wanted to lean on him harder, but the front office wouldn't let him.
My suggestion? Stop putting everything the Mets do in a petri dish and examining it for a cure to cancer.He's 25 now and time is running out on reeling in his behavior.
Willie Randolph got killed for being too dour and not expressive enough of his emotions. Now, a Met is too expressive and gets killed for that. Is there anything anyone on the Mets can do right? Reyes is playing well right now, made an ultimately meaningless gesture and the sky is falling? No, it isn't.
I'm not saying Reyes wasn't acting like a baby, he's been around the big leagues long enough that an error shouldn't affect him quite so much. It's funny, though, because when the Mets were running away with the National League during the 2006 season, I remember hearing a lot about how Reyes's exuberance was a big reason for his and the team's success. It wasn't until last September that his dancing and "unprofessionalism" became a selfish drag on the team.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
6-30-2008 @ 5:34PM
Joel said...
Alright New York, here's a trade. Reyes for Renteria, straight up. The Tigers will take him off your hands for you...
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6-30-2008 @ 5:48PM
PFS said...
Great googly-moogly Joel, I think we'll have to pass on that one, haha.
Anyway, so he lost his temper over his throwing error. Big shmeal. When Paul O'Neill used to have an absolute fit over something once or twice a week, he was described as "intense". When Lou Piniella or Bobby Cox loses his mind and gets tossed from a game, well, that's just their style. But when Reyes does it (or any young black or Latino player, for that matter), it's a problem, it's immaturity, it's selfishness, it's playing the game the "wrong way". Nobody's perfect in this game, and the Mets are a lot less than perfect than most teams these days. Just let him do his thing, having people constantly in his ear about how he should be acting is liable to hurt more than help, if it saps his love for the game.
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6-30-2008 @ 9:13PM
Tha_Prowler said...
reyes 4 renteria...?? hahaha. that's a good one.
as for reyes he does seem to be a damn baby alot more recently as the team is losing n not winning as before. still i don't want him to lose his intensity. it's who he is. he really shouldn't be sooo damn whiny tho...esp ON THA FIELD of play.
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7-01-2008 @ 7:34AM
baseballfan said...
It's Reyes as a whole - not just his little temper tantrum on Sunday. He's an "I" player and always was. For example, on Saturday, Reyes is on second, Castillo on first and the best hitter on the Mets (Wright) is batting. Reyes wants third base so bad, he can taste it. Why? A single scores Reyes. There were two outs, so a sacrifice fly was not an option. So why did he have to be on third? Anyway, he gets picked off of second and leaves Wright stranded at the plate. Next inning, Wright comes up and hits a homerun. Mets lose 3-2. Reyes is more concerned with his stats. He knows the comparisons between him, Jeter, Rollins, Ramirez and Tejada and he wants to be the best - best defensive SS, fastest SS, and he doesn't give a crap about the team. He'll sacrifice them for his own stats. And temper tantrums like that prove it. You can't compare him to a Paul O'Neill. The guy helped his team to win everyday. Reyes helps himself only.
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7-02-2008 @ 8:22AM
Mike Rath said...
You can be intense without acting like a child...
If management doesn't give him a "time out" when he goes off they will have another Milledge on their hands...
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