The Mets and Reds played out of the weirdest first innings you’ll ever see Wednesday at Great American Ball Park. The chaos resulted from confusion over the Mets’ batting order, and subsequent attempts by the official scoring crew to get things back under control.
To lay out the scene in greater detail, the Mets opened the game in Cincinnati with back-to-back strikeouts by Brandon Nimmo and Wilmer Flores. Asdrubal Cabrera, third in the batting order, then hit a double with two outs.
That’s when Reds manager Jim Riggleman pointed out to the umpire that the Mets’ official batting order had Cabrera batting second and Flores third. They batted in the wrong order. The Reds’ Twitter had some fun with it.
Can someone send this down to the third base dugout? https://t.co/htjvJss5k1
— Cincinnati Reds (@Reds) May 9, 2018
Because Flores and Cabrera had swapped places, a third out was awarded and the inning was deemed over. This is where things got weird again, however, because of confusion over how to score what had just happened.
Rather than have Jay Bruce, fourth in the batting order, open the second inning, the Mets led off with No. 5 hitter Adrian Gonzalez. What happened to Bruce, though? Apparently the official scorers decided that Cabrera’s double had never happened, and the Mets’ third out was assigned to Bruce as a ground out to the catcher. This, even though Bruce never actually batted.
Here’s what the scorecard looks like for the frame.
So Cabrera technically never recorded a plate appearance, and Bruce got saddled with an 0-for-1 effort to start the game even though he never actually recorded an out. It seems like a bit of a cruel fate for Bruce, who had nothing to do with the mistake, but this is how order was restored to the galaxy.
In summation: Some Mets batted out of order, and it led to some wackiness.
