It was just a week ago that the Mets blogosphere was abuzz, calling for Ruben Tejada to be sent down and call up a streaking Omar Quintanilla.
Facing demotion, the problem solved itself when Tejada dove for a ball in short left at Yankee Stadium and strained his quad, landing him on the DL and opening a vacancy for Quintanilla to come up and show what he could contribute; and contribute he has.
In his five games since his call-up, the 31-year old veteran has been on fire at the plate, going 9-for-17 with a double, a triple, a home run and three RBIs. Quintanilla has put the ball in play in every one of his at-bats of his short stint thus far, save a lone strikeout.
In just five games, Quintanilla has nearly one third of the production that Tejada had in his 50 games this season.
Although the fielding has been an issue so far as he has already amounted a trio of errors in only a week in the majors, his bat has been invaluable to this anemic Mets offense.
It is a very short sample size, but what a performance so far by Quintanilla. The Mets were hesitant to call him up out of risk of losing him if they had to DFA him should he struggle in the majors, yet he has been able to silence his doubters in a big way.
Since his call-up, Quintanilla has had more hits than David Wright, Lucas Duda, and Daniel Murphy have had combined.
He has certainly made a statement, but the only question that remains to be seen is when he eventually does come back down to earth, can he maintain a solid offensive level of play?
