For a short time Wednesday night, the Mets had acquired the big bat their lineup desperately needed. The team agreed to send Zack Wheeler and Wilmer Flores to the Brewers for Carlos Gomez, but the deal fell apart, reportedly due to Gomez's medicals. Specifically his hip.
Thanks to the magic of social media, Flores apparently managed to find out he had been traded during the game, but the Mets let him play anyway. He was sobbing on the field at one point. Flores signed with the Mets at age 16 and spent seven years in the organization. They're the only team he knows, so of course he was upset.
And yet, Flores remained on the field.
After the game, manager Terry Collins told reporters he had not heard anything about a trade, which is why Flores stayed in the game.
"This kid comes off the field to me, and he hears he's traded, he's upset by it, and I don't know anything about it," Collins said. "So I went down and said 'Listen, I don't know what's going on. You got a game to play. Let's go play baseball.' This is part of the business."
Here are the highlights from Collins' postgame press conference, in which he makes it clear he had not yet been informed of any trade during the game:
According to CBS Sports MLB Insider Jon Heyman, GM Sandy Alderson and owner Jeff Wilpon met with Flores to try to make him feel better following Wednesday's game. "They apologized," said one source to Heyman, and Flores was said to be "fine" after the talk with Alderson and Wilpon.
Regardless of what Collins may or may not have known, he knew Flores was upset about something. It was obvious. Yeah, the Mets are locked in a tight NL East race with the Nationals, but they were down five runs at the time. Flores should have been out of the game.
