Memorable September Call Ups
By Mike Silva ~ September 15th, 2009. Filed under: Mike Silva.
Josh Thole has started his big league career with a splash hitting .421 in his first 19 at bats. It made me think about September call up’s that made an impression. Not all were top prospects like Thole, but I thought each that came to mind had an interesting story. Here they are in no particular order:
Timo Perez- One of the most important September call ups in team history. Would the 2000 Mets gone to the World Series without him? Probably not. Timo was not talked about much during the season despite hitting .357 at Norfolk. In today’s internet age you would have heard calls for him before July 1st. You probably know the story about Derek Bell injuring himself during Game 1 of the ALDS in San Francisco, Timo taking over, and the rest is history. Those 99-2000 Mets teams didn’t have the young, speedy, energetic type of player that Perez was for a couple of weeks that October. Unfortunately those few weeks turned out to be the exception, not the rule, during Timo’s career.
Esix Snead- Don’t tell me why I remember this, but Snead hit a game winning, two out, three run homer in the 11th inning to beat the Expos in September of 2002. For some reason I was watching this meaningless game. In 13 at-bats he hit .308 with 4 stolen bases. Snead would get one more at bat in May of 2004. He was last spotted during the 2006 season playing for the Baltimore organization. This kid named Endy Chavez got 4 hits that night for the Expos (that I don’t remember). One of those obscure fun memories from an otherwise unmemorable season.
Ramon Martinez - If the Mets made the 2008 playoffs Ramon Martinez deserved his share of the credit. In a must win game against the Cubs Martinez, along with Robinson Cancel, drove in key runs to tie the game. The Mets would win it an inning later with a Carlos Beltran base hit off the glove of Micah Hoffpauir. Ironically it was Hoffpauir that put the Mets behind that night with 2 homers and five hits.
Melvin Mora- Mora did play for the Mets at various points of the 1999 season, but he was a September call up. Although he only hit .161 in 39 at-bats he was called upon during the NLCS. He rose to the occasion hitting .429 with a homer. He also made a couple of key throws from the outfield to nail runners at the plate. While Rickey Henderson worried about a contract extension, Mora established himself as a big leaguer.
Gregg Jefferies- I cheated a bit on this one considering he was called up a few days before (Aug 28th) because the Mets wanted him to be eligible for the postseason. Back then you couldn’t create fugazi injuries to put players on after Sept 1st (see K-Rod and Anaheim in 2002). Jefferies did nothing but hit the entire month (.961 OPS), which earned him a starting job. It essentially ended Wally Backman’s career in New York, a point he made during his interview with me in 2008. What’s funny is that we should have known that Jefferies might not have been as good as advertised. His mental mistakes during the LA series almost prevented it from going 7 games. That season, his first in AAA, he hit a very ordinary .282. This was after consistently hit .330 and above at other levels.
