Funny how an injury to a middle reliever can change the future of a franchise for years to come, but in this case it certainly did:
It was four and a half years ago when Duaner Sanchez’s ill-fated cab ride in Miami prompted the Mets to look for a new reliever. The team’s setup man for the first 4 months of the season had severely injured his pitching shoulder in a fluke car accident, as it was announced on the day of Major League Baseball’s trading deadline that Sanchez would miss the remainder of the season. Mets’ GM Omar Minaya knew he needed to act swiftly in finding someone to fill that 8th inning role. By the end of the day, the Mets had found themselves two new pitchers – veteran reliever Roberto Hernandez and enigmatic starter Oliver Perez.
Perez, who to that point had a lost season (lost his job in Pittsburgh’s rotation with an ERA over 6.00), would eventually find his way into the Met starting rotation that season following a short stint in AAA. Injuries helped clear the path for Perez in ’06, as the southpaw would find himself becoming the Mets’ starter in games 4 and 7 of the NLCS against the St. Louis Cardinals.
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