As the embers of the Jorge Lopez situation (somehow) continue to burn, rest assured that this would likely only happen to the New York Mets.
On Wednesday, the relief pitcher was ejected from a game after a late-innings meltdown, then threw his glove into the stands as he walked back to the dugout. In his postgame interview, Lopez appeared to call the Mets the worst team in the MLB, before issuing a clarifying comment that didn’t really clear up anything.
Unsurprisingly, he got designated for assignment.
A day later, Lopez is fanning the flames. Because no Mets incident ends quietly.
On his Instagram, Lopez lambasted the media for misinterpreting his words (because of the English-Spanish language barrier) as a criticism of the Mets. He doubled down on having actually meant that he was the worst teammate. By doing so, he’s still missing the forest for the trees:
Jorge Lopez's Instagram. Given the language barrier, I think it's fair to wonder if Lopez fully understood the secondary, clarifying question. I don't know the answer to that, but I'm at least questioning it. pic.twitter.com/WAyfVqCuL9
— Laura Albanese (@AlbaneseLaura) May 30, 2024
Lopez’s claims of media misrepresentation are fair on their face. People covering him should be able to accurately portray him, his actions, and his words regardless of the language barrier.
But the thing is, the media did give Lopez multiple chances to clarify what he meant, as this Twitter thread from NJ.com Mets beat writer Manny Gomez illustrates. It’s not as if they took his first few sentences and irresponsibly ran with that interpretation. They knew Lopez was speaking his second language and didn’t want to misquote him.
Even then, if Lopez really thinks he got DFA’d because of an unfortunate mischaracterization, he’s likely mistaken. The Mets were probably doing that the moment he threw his glove into the stands. Anything that came after would only serve to further validate their decision.
In classic Mets fashion, welcome to the silliest saga … until the next one happens.
