Mets third baseman David Wright went 3-for-4 with a run scored tonight for St. Lucie as he continues his final two tuneup games before he’s activated on Monday in Philadelphia.
Wright raised his average to .375 in seven games during his rehab assignment.
Mets manager Terry Collins said that Wright will not be an everyday player immediately on his return.
“I talked to Dave today about some stuff and he is certainly aware, I don’t know how many days a week it will be, but he certainly won’t be that every day guy until we know his back is 100 percent,” Collins said.
“That may not be until next spring. We’ll have to keep an eye on it.”
Once Wright returns, Collins will face some challenges ahead on how he uses his infielders. The Mets have mixed and matched with their infield for much of this season. Wilmer Flores and Reuben Tejada have shared time at shortstop, five different players got 10 or more starts at second base and four players received more than 10 starts at third.
Collins plans to continually use both Tejada and Flores at short and move Daniel Murphy back to second base permanently to make room for Wright at third. Murphy made 39 starts at third base this year.
“Number one, these guys get in routines and when you come to the ballpark it’s always nice to know you’re going to be in the lineup. Right now that’s not the case,” said Collins.
“I’m going to try and do as good a job as I can to give guys warnings the night before so that they have an idea of whether they are going to be in or not in.”
“The only thing I try to be careful of is when you have a guy that’s playing pretty good and all of a sudden tomorrow you’re not going to play him. You may be hurting yourself by trying to manipulate all these different pieces. Once in a while you need to leave the same lineup out there.”
(Updated 8/21)
