Even in Victory, Mets Embarrass themselves with Lindor-McNeil Spat

 METS 5 - DIAMONDBACKS 4 

Leave it to the Mets to turn what should be a night to celebrate a huge come-from-behind win into a debate over rats, raccoons and opossums. This is the kind of drama that only the Mets could create, because why not. 

During the seventh inning stretch of Friday's Mets-D-Backs, Michael Conforto notices there is something going on in the tunnel of the Mets dugout and sprints downstairs to see what is happening. Teammates and training staff join him in the tunnel to break up what appears to be a fight. 

Later we see Francisco Lindor and Jeff McNeil visibly upset in the Mets dugout. In fact, after a flyout by McNeil in the bottom half of the seventh he runs back into the dugout tunnel. Lindor soon follows with his biggest hit in a Mets uniform, a two-run homer that tied the game at four, and quickly runs back into the dugout tunnel himself afterwards. No celebration after the blast. No smiles, at least not until Patrick Mazieka's infield single in the 10th inning gave the Mets a 5-4 win. 

When asked to explain what happened in the dugout between he and McNeil, Lindor made things worse by trying to turn it into a debate between a raccoon and a rat, and laugh it off. The explanation was utterly ridiculous and tone deaf. The laughing was like a player who realized he's out of his element. Welcome to New York.

Does Lindor, who is hitting a whopping .175 on the year, think that the New York media and the fans are that dumb to believe a story about rats and raccoons? In the words of Jerry Seinfield, "really?" 

For his part, McNeil made it even worse by claiming what he thought he saw was a opposum in the dugout and that he and Lindor were "having fun." When did having fun require teammates to sprint down the tunnel? I am sure that they were not running to see a raccoon, rat, or opposum. Clearly there was a fight between the two. 

"They can believe whatever they want," McNeil retorted when told that people may not believe this tall tale. Nice try Jeff, but nobody is buying it. 

McNeil and Lindor should have plead the fifth, and said no comment. That would have been a better answer that what they gave on Friday night. 

Luis Rojas tried to deflect, saying he didn't see anything, only saying when he checked on the tunnel, he saw Lindor running up the tunnel yelling "Let's play ball!"

Obviously not all teammates are going to get along.  There is no requirement that says that players on the same team have to like one another, but for both Lindor and McNeil to pull the "let's play dumb" card is not going to fly. Not for a team that has been hovering around .500 all year. Not for a team that created a fake hitting coach called Donnie Stevenson, only to be shocked when Chilli Davis was promptly fired. 

This is looking like a combustible situation, and it is now on Luis Rojas to get involved and get to the bottom of what is going on in his clubhouse and fix it. If the Mets are going to go anywhere they need to have every player on the same page. They can ill afford petty rifts, and even more so, they call ill afford their players to create bad publicity.