Ike Davis Rare Ray of Hope in Flushing's Endless Circus

NEW YORK -- The Mets did the only thing they could do Monday to assure themselves of cheers their first day back at Citi Field.

They called up Ike Davis.

When Davis got off his plane from Buffalo on Monday, one of the baggage handlers at LaGuardia Airport had seen Davis' name on the flight manifest and approached him for an autograph.

With the team 4-8 -- having lost two of three in each of its first four series -- after 2 1/2 years of agony, Mets fans have been searching for a someone, something, which they could grab onto for a positive vibe.

Ike Davis is the designated life preserver.

Which, of course, is unfair to him. He's 23 years old with 65 games of experience above Single-A and just 10 in Triple-A.

"He's not here to stay," general manager Omar Minaya cautioned.

But there he was Monday against the Cubs, playing first base and batting sixth -- and getting a standing ovation before and after a second-inning at-bat, in which he dumped a soft single to right-center.

Davis went 2-for-4 with an RBI single in the Mets' five-run seventh, earning him another round of cheers, and the self-destructing Cubs fell 6-1.

Ovations in Queens have been rare.

Since September 2007 the Mets have had two late-season collapses and a year that went down the toilet. The tally of injuries in 2009 was exceeded only by the number of public-relations gaffes, and in the second year of a new stadium, the fanbase is disgruntled, with just one sellout and three of seven home games drawing fewer than 30,000.

Some in baseball feel the Mets will shake things up -- i.e., fire manager Jerry Manuel -- sooner rather than later. The pessimism has reached such a point that one team insider even guessed that pitching coach Dan Warthen will be gone before May and Manuel not much later -- to be replaced by Bob Melvin, the former Mariners and Diamondbacks manager who is now scouting for the Mets.

One New York columnist last week called for the Mets to re-hire Bobby Valentine as manager, which (based on ownership's media track record) could have been a trial balloon planted by the team.

Minaya seems on less of a hot seat than Manuel, but there might even be some machinations going on behind the scenes regarding his position. Assistant general manager John Ricco was scheduled to be with the team through its last trip, to Colorado and St. Louis, but Ricco didn't make it to St. Louis, with special assistant to the GM Wayne Krivsky (the former Reds GM) on hand instead.

No one in New York would be surprised by a firing or two, because Mets ownership seems to vacillate between passivity, as in last year's free-agent pitching market, and hurriedly responding to public perception.

The irony on Monday was that the Davis call-up looked like a classic knee-jerk reaction -- and it probably wasn't.

When starting first baseman Daniel Murphy went down with a sprained knee late in spring training, the Mets gave the open roster spot to Mike Jacobs, hoping Murphy would be back in April and Jacobs could provide some sock in his absence.

Minaya said it was "very tempting" to carry Davis, who hit .480 in the Grapefruit League, on the Opening Day roster.

"What he showed to me in spring training," Manuel said, "was easy power, fluid power. That really kind of caught my eye."

Yet the Mets resisted the temptation to rush Davis, their first-round pick in 2008.

That resistance gave way in less than three weeks.

But the Mets says it's not a panic move, and a closer look justifies that claim.

Jacobs, who hit cleanup on Opening Day, batted .208 with two RBI and seven strikeouts in 24 at-bats.

Meanwhile, the left-handed-hitting Davis was batting .364 for Triple-A Buffalo, with two homers and a .500 on-base percentage in 10 games.

And, just as importantly, Murphy wasn't making progress. Minaya expressed some hope Monday that Murphy could be back in mid-May, but he is currently only doing light running and soft-toss drills.

So with Murphy's return a ways off, Jacobs struggling, Davis mashing, and the team going into Monday's game with a .270 slugging percentage from left-handed hitters (second-worst in the NL), the Mets reached for Davis.

"We want to get more production from first base," Minaya said, "and we felt, well, let's give this kid a chance. Let's just let him play, let's see what happens."

The news delighted fans who had been pleading for his promotion since he doubled twice in Buffalo's April 8 opener.

"This kid is the kind of kid who's going to be able to handle an environment like New York," Minaya said.

"He's going to play every day. We're not going to bring up a young kid to not play every day. I talked to Jerry about that."

(Davis singled off lefty Sean Marshall in the seventh, but didn't look very comfortable doing so, buckling on two pitches and bailing out on the one he hit.)

Meanwhile, the public's expectations have probably ballooned to grossly unfair -- about an 8 on the Wieters Meter.

"You kind of roll the dice with this particular situation. I don't see [Davis] necessarily as the savior of the deal. I see him as a good complement to what we have."
-- Mets manager Jerry Manuel "I don't think you could really ever prepare for this," Manuel said. "I don't know if you could prepare for coming to New York and being touted.

"You kind of roll the dice with this particular situation. I don't see him necessarily as the savior of the deal. I see him as a good complement to what we have. ... I think we have to be careful in high expectations right away. I think we have to let him get his feet on the ground, let him feel and sense the pace of the major league game and major league season.

"It's difficult to ask him to come in and we get on his back and ride him. I'd like to see that happen. But we won't do that."

The reality is, the Mets' goal in the clubhouse (and what it should be upstairs) is to just tread water for two months, since they opened the season without Murphy, shortstop Jose Reyes and center fielder Carlos Beltran.

Reyes came back last Saturday after missing almost all of spring training with a thyroid condition and has played as if he were underwater, getting held out of the starting lineup Monday. ("It's going to take a little bit of time," Minaya said.) Beltran is not yet cleared for baseball activity; he has a check-up this week with the Colorado surgeon who operated on his right knee in January.

Davis could provide some much-needed pop.

"I think it's an impact bat," said a scout from another team. "I like him a lot."

Manuel said he was most impressed with Davis' third at-bat, with he flied to right with the score 1-1 in the sixth and man on first and seemed to think, in Manuel's words, "The game is on the line, let me try to do some damage here."

Said Davis: "There's a lot of times I go up there and I try to take a shot. I try to drive the ball, and I look for pitches to do that with. ... Yeah, I was trying to take a shot there."

Davis said he has been made aware of the public's clamoring for him but that his own expectations are enough to motivate him.

This being the Mets, they tried to screw up Davis' promotion.

Jacobs had been designated for assignment after Saturday's 20-inning marathon in St. Louis, but the Mets didn't want to use the roster spot for Davis immediately, understandably adding pitcher Tobi Stoner instead to supplement the tired bullpen.

Once the Mets got through Sunday night's game using just three pitchers, they should have known they could go back to a 12-man staff and open a spot for Davis. But Davis said he didn't get the call until 12:10 p.m. Monday -- when he had already taken batting practice in preparation for Buffalo's day game.

Thus the Mets (typically) put Davis at risk of injury, or being late for his first day, by procrastinating.

When Davis finally got the news, he first called his mother, who didn't answer her phone. Then he spoke to his dad, who told him to be himself and play hard.

Ike's father, Ron, spent 11 years in the majors as a reliever, with the Yankees, Twins, Cubs, Dodgers and Giants.

By the way, Ron Davis' last big-league game was Sept. 24, 1988, for the Giants.

His catcher that day?

Bob Melvin.