Where there’s a Wilmer ...

After dramatic season, Flores back in spotlight

Tejada’s playoffs-ending injury has given Wilmer Flores a chance once again to play a pivotal role for the Amazin’s.

HE JUST overcame both back spasms and a case of strep throat that caused him to lose 10 pounds, and now he reassumes the Mets’ starting shortstop job thanks to a teammate’s traumatic injury.

In the life of Wilmer Flores? Sounds like just another week at the ballpark.

Flores’ ultradramatic 2015 absorbs its next plot twist in Monday night’s National League Division Series Game 3 at Citi Field, the firstever postseason contest at the Mets’ highly regarded ballpark. The Mets and Dodgers are tied at a game apiece in the wake of Chase Utley’s controversial Game 2 takeout slide of Ruben Tejada, which resulted in a fractured right fibula for the Mets’ shortstop and continued a seventhinning Dodgers rally en route to a 52 Mets loss at Dodger Stadium.

Utley received a twogame suspension on Sunday, but the Dodgers second baseman appealed the ban and a hearing could come as early as Monday.

With Tejada out, Flores gets back the gig that he won in spring training and that he lost through the grind of the regular season. He receives another chance to shine from the team that nearly traded him in July. Another opportunity to save the Mets season, as he did [a little] two days after he nearly was traded.

“I’ve been ready since we started the postseason,” Flores said late Saturday night in Los Angeles. “So I don’t need to change anything.”

For Flores, 2015 hasn’t been much about him changing; he’s a mediocre defender and lowpatience hitter with some nice pop in his bat, and an extremely likable teammate. It has been far more about changes affecting him.

The shortstop experiment, an endeavor to which the Mets committed last winter, stopped in June, when the Mets correctly decided their best defensive lineup featured Flores at second base, Tejada at short and Daniel Murphy at third. By the end of July, with the Mets importing experienced second basemen Kelly Johnson and Juan Uribe in a trade with Atlanta and David Wright moving closer to a return from the disabled list, Flores appeared increasingly extraneous. So much so that, when the Mets agreed to ac quire Carlos Gomez from Milwaukee, Flores was the secondary piece, after rehabilitating Zack Wheeler.

As has now become legend, though, the Mets decided to cancel the Gomez trade after viewing his medical records, and Flores — whom for some reason the Mets kept playing on July 29 even after agreeing in principle to trade him — cried on the field as he believed he was a Brewer. And on July 31 (the same day the Mets acquire Yoenis Cespedes), in a crucial home series against Washington, Flores cranked a 12thinning, walkoff homer to kickstart a threegame sweep of the Nationals and an 112 run that altered the team’s fate.

“After the trade that didn’t happen … I think Wilmer really relaxed and started playing well,” manager Terry Collins said Sunday.

In September, though, Flores cooled off again (.269/ .309/.385 in 19 games), at least partly because of the injury and illness. It caused little stir that Flores didn’t start either of the first two playoff games. He entered Saturday upon Tejada’s injury, didn’t handle any plays in the field and grounded out to the pitcher in his one atbat.

Tejada’s injury, Collins said, “is a big dent, and I will certainly spend some time with Wilmer [Monday] and let him know that he’s proved he can play shortstop at this level, to relax and go out, because he’s going to be the guy.”

Does Flores have another big hit or two in him? Can he avoid the mechanical issues that underlined his defensive woes? With Tejada down, and with the Mets set to activate minor leaguer Matt Reynolds — someone who figures to play only in an emergency — to back up Flores at shortstop, the Mets have no choice but to learn the answers to these questions.

“I think he’ll be fine,” Collins said. “I’m not concerned about it. I think that he understands what his responsibilities are now, and as we all know, if he swings the bat like he’s capable of, we can turn our heads at a lot of things, because he can hit.”

Of course Flores winds up as relevant, as dramatic, in this Mets playoff run. After the season he just survived, why stop now?

Getty Images (2) PAYBACK’S A PITCH: Matt Harvey, who glared at then-Phillie Chase Utley when he plunked him after Philadelphia had hit two Mets with pitches, said he won’t be afraid to come inside against Utley and the Dodgers in Game 3 Monday night.