The Mets are mad that Yasiel Puig is better at baseball than them

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Let’s get this out of the way: If you give up a big homer, and the player who hit that homer spends a moment admiring said homer, you are not allowed to be mad at them. They earned it! Many of the Mets do not agree with this point of view, a fact we learned after Yasiel Puig blasted a three-run shot against them on Wednesday.

Wilmer Flores spoke about it after the game:

“I just told him to run the bases, that was it,” Flores said. “I don’t think he knows what having respect for the game is. We’re playing horrible right now, we don’t need his (behavior).”

“Behavior” was definitely a four-letter word that began with “s” and ended with “hit” before ESPN censored it. Puig’s response to all that, according to Flores? “F--k you.” It also wasn’t the only conversation a Mets player tried to have with Puig about it, as ESPN wrote that Yoenis Cespedes and Jose Reyes tried to explain to Puig that he should run a little faster. (Puig’s response to that? “I don’t look at it that way, but it is what it is.”)

There’s also a note from the New York Daily News that said Cespedes and Reyes later had a heated exchange that they wouldn’t make the details of public, and Mets catcher Travis d’Arnaud spoke with Puig about admiring his homer, too.

This is great, because Flores openly admitted what the issue was: The Mets are mad about playing terribly, and Puig checking out how far he could hit a homer off Mets pitching only magnified the level of their awfulness. None of this is Puig’s fault. If you don’t want him watching a homer, maybe don’t throw pitches he can hit to the moon. Trying to coach him on Respecting The Game and Playing The Right Way while he’s rounding the bases is far more offensive than Puig checking out what he can do to a ball with a bat.

Mets manager Terry Collins is the only one involved in the situation on New York’s side who came out looking like his head is in the right place: “We’ve got bigger problems than somebody’s home run trot right now.” With a 31-40 record, 11.5 games out of a playoff spot in June, and just 3-7 in their last 10, well, Terry isn’t wrong.