NL WILD CARD SERIES: METS VS BREWERS

October 3, 2024

Carlos Mendoza

American Family Field

New York Mets

Pregame Press Conference

Q. What do you like about having a veteran like Quintana in a game like this?

CARLOS MENDOZA: This is a guy that's been in this league for a long time, pretty good career. I like how he's been throwing the baseball the past month or so. He's poised. He's calm, and he's been in big situations before.

So I'm expecting him to go out there and give us a chance to win a baseball game.

Q. Vientos this year went from squeezed off the opening day roster at just about the last minute to lineup staple for you. How would you just describe and summarize his ascension?

CARLOS MENDOZA: Proud of him. You've got to give him credit. It wasn't easy for him. Came to Spring Training with a pretty good chance of making the opening day roster.

We signed J.D. Martinez towards the ends. We're telling him at the end of pretty much the last day of Spring Training he's going back to Triple-A. Comes back up for a game, hits a walkoff homer. The next day I'm sending him back to Triple-A.

You've got to give him credit. He never gave up, kept working, and put himself in a position where we needed him. It was an easier call for us. That was the case. He came back up and just ran away with it. Look at the numbers.

The fact that not only he's playing, he's hitting second today, and he's been hitting fourth. Like he's in the middle of our lineup. It says a lot about this kid. He should be proud of himself.

I've been really impressed with how he's handled the whole situation, not only the ups and downs between Triple-A and the Big Leagues, but just finding ways to get through tough stretches at the Big League level, playing every day, playing on a pennant race, and he's done that. The league has adjusted to him, and he's continued to make adjustments. So pretty impressive.

Q. In the Phillies game a couple weeks ago at home, you talked about what it would mean to be able to come back to Citi Field and get another game at home? What would it mean to get this win today and get another home game for the fans in New York?

CARLOS MENDOZA: It would mean a lot. That's our mentality. I said it, when we were facing the Phillies, we're going to be back here. That continues to be our mentality and our expectations.

We have an opportunity tonight to finish the job in this series and go back -- we've got to go and play two, but then we will have an opportunity to play in front of our fans.

I know they are going to be rooting for us. They've been doing this the whole year. My message to them is continue to believe.

Q. Carlos, I guess it shouldn't be a surprise that you guys are the first team that's going to be playing five games in four days when three of them are playoff games.

I know we talk a lot about just going on adrenaline, but when you're trying to like look at your roster, your pitchers, and see what kind of shape they're in, is fatigue still a thing this time of year? Or do you think guys really can just muscle up and plow through?

CARLOS MENDOZA: Look, I'm not going to make excuses. At the end of the day, our job is to go out there and get the job done. We've got to get the W. Whatever was in the past, whatever we've been through the past four or five days, week, month -- because I'm going to go back to the month of August when we had to go to the West Coast twice, and everybody was talking about our schedule and our opponents, and not only are you playing these teams, but you come back home and you're playing these teams. We found a way.

Nobody's going to feel sorry for us. It's been hard. You have to accept that. But here we are with a chance to do something special. I know they're really fired up. The guys are ready to go. They're fired up. I like how the guys are going about their business today.

We're going to go out there. We're going to compete. We're going to have fun and go from there.

Q. It does have a real consequence because you have -- when you're managing a bullpen with the workload the DS's had in a very short period of time, that becomes another layer?

CARLOS MENDOZA: 100 percent. Guys are going to have to step up. Yeah, it makes it challenging to manage those last few innings, but again, guys will get opportunity, and they'll get the job done.

Q. We're talking to Marte after you. Over the past week or so, has he looked kind of more like the Starling Marte he was before all the injuries started to you?

CARLOS MENDOZA: Yeah. Definitely a lot better, especially offensively. I like the at-bats. There's been a couple of tough right-on-right matchups, and he either walks or hits the ball hard at someone or got a result.

So I like the way he's moving. A stolen base yesterday tells you that he's feeling a lot better. But, yes, I think this is probably the best version of Marte that we've seen since he got hurt.

Q. Following up on what Mark said about Marte, you protected him quite a bit these last few months. Now he's been in the lineup three days. Are you kind of just ready to let him fly?

CARLOS MENDOZA: Yeah, that's why you protect those guys. At the beginning of the year, he went down. He was down probably for a couple months, and then when he got back up and was on the active roster, I don't think we played him more than two or three days in a row, and that was the reason why.

So by the time we got to this point, we needed to do what we needed to do, and here we are. I think this is the first time for him playing three in a while, but I continue to check with him and he knows what's in front of us.

Ready to go. I'm just proud of the fact that he continues to post and continues to play well for us.

Q. What have you made of his season defensively? Some of the defensive metrics have been down, but we've all seen the arm strength. He can still gun down runners pretty much anywhere.

CARLOS MENDOZA: It was a struggle for him at the beginning where he wasn't getting to balls whether it was because of these routes. But you've got to give him credit because he's been really good defensively since he got back from the injury list.

We know that his arm is an above average arm and he can shut the running down because guys respect his arm. I feel like his routes, the way he's getting to baseballs is pretty good.