Daniel Murphy is expected to be activated from the disabled list later today after missing roughly two weeks with a calf strain. In that time, Dilson Herrera made the surprise jump from AA Binghamton and held his own at second base.
He hit .243 over 37 major league at bats, adding two home runs and a triple along the way. It wasn’t quite spectacular but at just 20 years old what more could we have expected?
According to Sandy Alderson, if Murphy is active he will be the teams starting second baseman meaning Herrera will head to the bench (or back to AA so he can help the B-Mets win the Championship). Murphy has earned that position and Herrera didn’t do enough in his two weeks to change that.
Another consideration had to be moving Herrera to shortstop. In the minor leagues, he played shortstop for 19 games but spent most of his time on the right side of the infield. Wilmer Flores will remain at short.
He’s done an excellent job of late and has flashed a glove that few thought he had. In 43 games at shortstop this season, Flores has committed just 3 errors.
His batting average has been quite the roller coaster. Of late he’s been hitting the ball harder. On August 26th his average was .221. Now, just a few weeks later he’s gotten it up to .236.
Flores will remain at shortstop for the rest of this season and Murphy, who is still 15th in Major League Baseball with 159 hits. He trails only Hunter Pence, Denard Span, Ben Revere and Casey McGehee for hits in the NL. Clearly Murphy deserves a return to second base and it will be interesting to see what Flores brings in the season’s final few weeks.
