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Bruce presents Mets with outfield dilemma
- Updated: August 3, 2016
NEW YORK — Jay Bruce arrived at Citi Field in fine form on Tuesday night. Wearing No. 19, he went 0-for-4 and started in right field during the Mets’ 7-1 victory against the arch-rival Yankees that continues the next two nights at Yankee Stadium.
That was the easy part.
The presence of the lefty-swinging power hitter with 25 homers and 80 RBIs thus far this season for the Reds will certainly make the Mets a much better offensive team. But his arrival has already shuffled the starting outfield alignment of the defending National League champs.
And that part of it is not so easy.
“As people will comment, it’s not an absolute perfect fit for us,” Mets general manager Sandy Alderson said about the acquisition of Bruce in a three-player deal that sent prospects Dilson Herrera and Max Wotell to the Reds. “You start with a need for offense and then you go from there.”
It’s now the job of Mets manager Terry Collins to juggle his outfielders, particularly Curtis Granderson, the incumbent right fielder who has played 18 games in center field since signing with the Mets as a free agent on Dec. 9, 2013.
It’s really very tough in the non-designated hitter league and seemingly Granderson is a man without a position. Yoenis Cespedes, who hit a pinch-hit RBI single in the seventh after starting the game on the bench for a third straight day with a sore right quad, is also not fond of playing center.
On Tuesday night, Collins started Alejandro De Aza up the middle, rewarding the manager when he hit a two-run, third-inning homer off Masahiro Tanaka. But De Aza isn’t a regular fit. Neither is Cespedes, Bruce or Granderson.
“We’re asking now for three guys to play a position they’re not comfortable playing,” Collins said.
Early on in his career, Granderson was the starting center fielder for the Tigers and Yankees, …
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