If the 2015 baseball season concludes with a Mets-Astros World Series? In addition to many recollections of 1986, expect a focus on Carlos Gomez. He’ll pass — although not because he dislikes attention.
“It’d be sick. It’d be unbelievable facing the Mets,” the center fielder said Monday, before the Astros opened a series with the Yankees at Yankee Stadium. “We have a chance in the World Series. We’d like to face somebody else. The Mets have too good pitching.”
Gomez’s arrival back in The Big Apple occurred three-plus weeks later than anticipated. In what now has become part of Mets legend, Gomez — a Mets amateur signing who made his major-league debut at Shea Stadium in 2007 and then went to the Twins in the 2008 Johan Santana trade — had been informed by the Brewers on July 29 that he would be headed back to the Mets in a trade, only to see the Mets call off the deal due to concerns about Gomez’s hip.
The surreal day included the sight of Wilmer Flores, under the belief that he was going to Milwaukee with Zack Wheeler for Gomez, crying on the field.
The Mets placated their livid fan base two days later when they acquired Yoenis Cespedes from Detroit — and that night, Flores hit a walkoff homer to beat Washington and set in motion the Mets’ surge to the National League East penthouse.
In between those two days, on July 30, the Astros looked at Gomez’s medicals and decided to trade for him, giving up a quartet of young players for Gomez, pitcher Mike Fiers and cash.
“When you get the opportunity to play in the big leagues with one team and then, later in your career, you get to come back, it’s something exciting. You want to be a part of something special with the team you came up,” Gomez said. “So when I heard I got traded to the Mets, I got really pumped and excited, because I know I have a lot of friends there. A lot of fans in New York still follow me and love me. I got excited, but this is the job and this is the business.
“Now I’m in Houston, and I love Houston.”
He hasn’t rewarded the Astros with on-field love; actually, Fiers has made a bigger impact, no-hitting the Dodgers last week. Gomez took a lousy .188/.226/.250 slash line, in 21 games as an Astro, into The Bronx Monday night. But the Astros have prospered anyway, extending their American League West lead over the Angels in Gomez’s time on the roster, and Gomez pledged not to worry about the post-fracas analysis.
“My game will tell if I’m healthy or not,” he said, when asked about his hip. “… All I can do is prove it by being on the field every day. Everybody’s going to ask me that question. I don’t think I’m the right person to ask if I have a problem or not.”
For now, Gomez has left the Mets, who have loved Cespedes, with no regrets. He says he feels the same way.
“I’m in the right place, in the right time,” he said, “and I came to follow the dream to be in a World Series and on the winning team.”