New York Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor had a unique story following a 5-4 win against the Arizona Diamondbacks on Friday, one which attributed a commotion in the dugout tunnel to a rat and raccoon.
Lindor and second baseman Jeff McNeil misplayed a popup in the top of the seventh inning, and following the half-inning, Mets players were seen running into the tunnel between the dugout and clubhouse where Lindor and McNeil had retreated.
After the game, Lindor said that he and McNeil were having a disagreement in the tunnel about if he saw a rat or McNeil saw a raccoon.
“It was funny; I told him ‘hey I’ve never seen a New York rat,’” Lindor said. “So we went down sprinting. I wanted to go see a New York rat. He got mad at me and was like ‘No, it’s not a rat, it’s a raccoon,’ and I was like ‘hell no, man. It’s a damn rat.’
“It was crazy because we were going back and forth debating if it was a rat or a raccoon.”
“It was fun,” McNeil said. “Nothing else to say about that.”
“At that point in the game, I knew something was going on,” Mets manager Luis Rojas said. “I heard some scrambling and some guys going down into the tunnel. When I went down to check and I got down there, the one thing I ran into was Francisco telling me ‘let’s go play ball, let’s go play ball, Luis,’ and he just came back up. That was the inning we tied the game. Nothing more than that. We kind of turned it around after that.”
In the bottom of the seventh, Lindor came back to hit a game-tying two-run home run.
“I don’t know exactly what was going on, but hearing Francisco talking about getting back to the game, and seeing what he did on the field is all I take from anything that happened,” Rojas added.
