Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic <\/p>\n
JUPITER, Fla. \u2014 Jeff McNeil\u2019s oblique injury opened up another spot for Opening Day and most of the attention has been focused on popular names like Brett Baty and Luisangel Acu\u00f1a.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But they aren\u2019t the only players who have made an impression, with Carlos Mendoza noting the attributes of two other potential bench players, Donovan Walton and Luis De Los Santos.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWalton is a baseball player,\u201d Mendoza said. \u201cHe\u2019s a smart player. He knows where to be [and] where to go.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
As for De Los Santos, who was reassigned to minor league camp, Mendoza praised his \u201cversatility.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe can go play anywhere and impact the baseball, as well,\u2019\u2019 the manager said. \u201cThey both have big league experience. \u2026 We\u2019ll see how it goes.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
For Walton, who started at second base and went 0-for-3 with a run scored in a 6-5 split-squad win over the Marlins at Roger Dean Stadium, it\u2019s a potential opportunity long in the making.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The 30-year-old has appeared in 70 games over five seasons in his MLB career, dating back to 2019 with the Mariners.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Walton signed a minor league deal with the Mets this past offseason after spending last year with the Giants, but he was drafted by the Mets in the 36th round out of high school in 2012.\u00a0<\/p>\n
At the time, Walton opted to follow his father, Rob, to Oklahoma State, where he was the pitching coach.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A one-time Orioles pitching prospect, Rob Walton was previously the head coach at Oral Roberts, where he coached Mets pitching coach Jeremy Hefner.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Donovan Walton didn\u2019t consider signing with the Mets out of high school and went on to play at Oklahoma State. <\/p>\n
Now, he\u2019s hoping to get back to Queens.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Walton said he still recalls a trip in 2003 that he took to Shea Stadium with his father, a native of East Rutherford.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a doubleheader against the Diamondbacks and I fell in love with the uniform,\u2019\u2019 Walton said of the Mets.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Having grown up rooting for the Texas Rangers, Walton soon became a fan of players like Carlos Beltran, David Wright and Jose Reyes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Walton went on to get drafted in the fifth round by Seattle in 2016 out of Oklahoma State, but he\u2019s never played more than 25 games in a season in the majors.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou find out who you are,\u201d Walton said. \u201cEveryone wants to hit home runs, but even in college, I knew I was gonna be a player that was gonna get on base and do whatever it takes to help the club win. I take pride in it. I enjoy it.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
And with the lefty-swinging McNeil on the shelf, as well as a utility spot still to be filled, Walton \u2014 also left-handed \u2014 could find his way onto the team.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThat would be cool,\u2019\u2019 Walton said. \u201cI try not to look towards something like that and just focus on today. If it happens, great. If it doesn\u2019t, that\u2019s OK. I\u2019ll keep going.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic JUPITER, Fla. \u2014 Jeff McNeil\u2019s oblique injury opened up another spot for Opening Day and most of the attention has been focused on popular names like Brett Baty and Luisangel Acu\u00f1a.\u00a0 But they aren\u2019t the only players who have made an impression, with Carlos<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":244896,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-244895","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244895"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244895\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":244897,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244895\/revisions\/244897"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}