Baseball is a game of specialists. There are all-or-nothing sluggers, weak-hitting infielders who are slick with their gloves and left-handed relievers who are expected to neutralize a few key hitters per game.
But as the Mets prepare for their wild-card series against the San Diego Padres, and a potential deep run in the postseason, they are committed to perhaps the game’s most specialized player: Terrance Gore, a speedy veteran who is officially an outfielder but spends the majority of his time on the basepaths.
There is no other player like Gore. When he comes into the game, everyone in the ballpark knows he will attempt to steal, and his margin of error is zero. The appeal and the drawbacks are obvious: A stolen base can start a rally, while a caught stealing can kill one.
That pressure doesn’t bother Gore.
“Before it’s happening, I can see it unravel in front of me,” he said of the moment before he is called to pinch-run. “I’ll be jittery, but as soon as I take the first step of my lead, everything slows down.”
With his unique role, Gore has built a quirky résumé full of the types of stat lines that baseball nerds love to cite. He has only 16 career base hits, but he has stolen 43 bases. He has more game appearances (112) than plate appearances (85). This year, Gore has stolen three bases while collecting only one hit, a single in Wednesday’s season finale.
Perhaps the most compelling statistic? Gore has three World Series championship rings, more than the rest of the 2022 Mets combined. On a team with several stars, including Pete Alonso, Edwin Díaz and Jeff McNeil, who have no postseason experience at all, Gore is a grizzled veteran, even if he only has one career R.B.I.
Gore earned his first World Series title in 2015 as a late-inning catalyst for the Kansas City Royals, who topped the Mets in five games. He was later signed by the 2018 Cubs for their playoff run, and in that year’s wild-card game, he stole a base and scored the game-tying run, though Chicago lost in extra innings.
The rest of the league was taking notes. With Gore seen as someone who could provide a boost during tightly contested postseason games, he was signed by the 2020 Los Angeles Dodgers on their way to a title and the 2021 Atlanta Braves on the way to theirs. In each case, he spent most of the year in the minors before being called up for September and October. He is called upon only occasionally, but his game-changing speed keeps earning him postseason roster spots.
Adding to Gore’s atypical career, he is called only when his team is desperate. “As much as I want to get in the game, it could be good if you don’t see me,” he said. “If you do see me, it means it’s time for me to save the day or something.”
Gore has played only in parts of ten games for the Mets, but they got a glimpse of his impact on Sept. 18. In the eighth inning of a game against the Pittsburgh Pirates, Gore was brought into a tie game as a pinch-runner for catcher Tomás Nido. Spooked by Gore’s presence, Manny Bañuelos tried three unsuccessful pickoffs in a row. On Bañuelos’s first pitch home, Gore took off for second, sliding in safely. Better still, the catcher’s throw went wild into center field, allowing Gore to get to third base on the error. Four pitches later, he scored the game-winning run on a bloop single.
The Mets are dreaming of a similar scenario playing out in the postseason, and if it does, it will be because not just of Gore’s speed, but also his work ethic. Gore spends most of every game preparing for a big moment. He runs sprints in the tunnels underneath the stadium. He studies the opposing team’s relief pitchers, memorizing their pitching motions and looking for subtle indications of whether they’re going to throw home or attempt a pickoff at first. He believes this work can mean the difference between a win or a loss.
Manager Buck Showalter, who faced Gore’s Royals teams in his time with the Baltimore Orioles, has been impressed with Gore’s intelligence and preparation.
“Before we brought him up, I asked our Triple-A people if he just shows up and has got a God-given skill. It’s a lot more than that. He’s smart. If you had that skill set and you knew every October, you were going to be playing, you’d do everything possible to maintain it, and that’s what he does. He takes pride in it. He works at it and doesn’t want it to go away. You know, he’s not 23.”
While Gore is 31 — an age at which many players begin to see their speed decline — his skills could come into play even more next season thanks to new rules that were created specifically to incentivize base stealing.
Along with the installation of a pitch clock, and the banning of the shift, Major League Baseball announced last month that pitchers would be limited to two pickoff attempts before they must deliver a ball to the plate — a setup that would give someone like Gore an easy greenlight to steal a base after drawing two throws. The bases will also increase in size, reducing the distance between them slightly while adding more surface area for a sliding player to grab in a close play. Even the pitch clock, a key component of the league’s effort to speed up the game, could allow base runners to time pitchers with more confidence.
These changes could lead teams to experiment with adding speed to their rosters.
But Gore scoffs at the idea that any fast guy — think Herb Washington, an All-American sprinter signed by the Oakland A’s in 1974 to middling success — can learn the ins and outs of base stealing overnight.
“I do a lot of homework,” he said. “You can’t just go get a track guy and tell him to run the bases and see what happens. He might be successful a couple times, but his percentage is not going to be good. You’ve got to know the game. You’ve got to know the pitches, the pitch count, who’s hitting, who’s playing first base.”
In Gore’s eyes, he’s not just a runner. He’s a baseball player, and he would love the opportunity to prove it again. He lit up at the mention of his 2019 season with the Royals, in which he saw some playing time as an outfielder and hit .275 with a .362 on-base percentage.
“Say those stats a little louder,” he said with a laugh.
But at this stage of his life, Gore has accepted his role as a specialist.
“It is what it is,” he said. “I’ve had a great career. I wouldn’t change anything that happened.”
