There was some commotion in the New York Mets’ dugout the seventh inning of Friday night’s game against the Arizona Diamondbacks at Citi Field. The SNY cameras showed Mets players such as Michael Conforto, Dominic Smith, and Jonathan Villar running into the dugout tunnel in response to an apparent altercation. And the immediate speculation was that the altercation involved Mets infielders Francisco Lindor and Jeff McNeil.
I know a lot of you are asking about the clubhouse tunnel situation that purportedly involved both Francisco Lindor and Jeff McNeil. I'm obviously not in the dugout and don't want to speculate. Have requested the Mets make both players available in the postgame Zoom room.
— Anthony DiComo (@AnthonyDiComo) May 8, 2021
Well, after the the game, Lindor didn’t deny having an altercation with McNeil… but claimed they were simply debating over whether or not they saw a rat or raccoon in the dugout tunnel. Huh?
“It was funny. I told him, I was like ‘Hey, I had never seen a New York rat.’ So we went down sprinting, I wanted to go see a New York rat. He got mad at me and said ‘No, that’s not a rat, it’s a raccoon.’ I’m like ‘Hell no, man, it’s a damn rat. It’s a New York rat.’ It was just crazy; we were going back and forth debating if it was a rat or a raccoon. Crazy, man. Insane.”
Lindor certainly did a fantasic, hilarious job selling that one.
McNeil later joined in on that explanation, but clarifying that he actually thought it was a possum.
And Mets pitcher Marcus Stroman had fun with it all on Twitter.
It’s all much easier for the Mets to laugh about after finding a way to win the game 5-4 in the 10th; they trailed 4-2 at the time of the alleged rat/raccoon/possum incident. After signing a 10-year, $341 million deal with the Mets over the offseason, Lindor entered Friday night having the worst 25-game stretch of his career. But he hit his second homer of the season to tie the game in the seventh inning (shortly after the dugout incident)- and followed it up with a hilarious press conference.