At Deadspin, Tom Scocca puts together a handy flow chart to determine whether fans who catch foul balls should keep those foul balls. It’s pretty much spot-on.

A Ramon Castro foul ball ricocheted off the second deck and right into my dad’s nachos during my family’s first game at Citi Field in 2009. There were no kids in the immediate vicinity, so we kept the ball. It’s in my old bedroom at my parents’ house now with a small nacho-cheese stain still visible. A few nachos were lost upon impact, but most of them were salvageable and subsequently consumed.

Longtime readers of this site may remember that it advocated the Mets’ acquisition of outfielder before both the 2010 and 2011 seasons. Well it seems like someone in the team’s front office is finally combing the TedQuarters archives for ideas (or, way more likely, combing the waiver wires for outfielders), as the Mets signed Lewis to a Minor League deal yesterday.

With Jason Bay and Andres Torres out, the Mets are in something of a pinch for outfielders. They’ve got Lucas Duda, Kirk Nieuwenhuis, Scott Hairston and Mike Baxter in the mix now and Terry Collins has said he’s willing to use converted infielder Jordany Valdespin in the outfield as well. Presumably if Torres returns as expected on Sunday, Valdespin will return to Triple-A or be used exclusively as a backup middle infielder, with Nieuwenhuis starting in left field and Hairston and Baxter serving as the team’s fourth and fifth outfielders.

But Lewis is 31 and was a useful Major Leaguer as recently as 2010. He can hit a bit, especially against righties, play good defense in the corners and fill in at center in a pinch. Don’t be surprised if he torches the ball in Triple-A and winds up with the big-league club whenever the Mets next need an outfielder. He’s not on the 40-man roster, so it would require some shuffling, but that’s down the road.

The Mets also signed Brad Emaus, which drew more headlines because he was their Opening Day second baseman last year as a Rule 5 draft pick and LOLMets. With Valdespin and Zach Lutz on the Major League team, the Triple-A Bisons have been stretched thin in the infield, so Emaus helps there. But his 14-game audition in 2011 shouldn’t be taken to mean he’ll never contribute anything at the big-league level. He’s done his Triple-A mashing in hitters’ heavens in Las Vegas and Colorado Springs, but if he can hack it at Buffalo, maybe he’ll have a future as a Major League reserve infielder.

How many times has a shortstop thrown the ball away with Kirk Nieuwenhuis sliding into second base on a potential double play? In my head it’s three times. Is that right? Does anyone have a better memory than mine?

It definitely happened last night. Mark Buehrle hit Nieuwenhuis in his jersey, putting him on base for the only time in the game. With one out and Daniel Murphy hitting, Nieuwenhuis actually broke back toward the first-base bag as Buehrle came home, fearing a pickoff. But after Murphy bounced one to the right side, Nieuwenhuis still wound up bearing down on Reyes as he attempted the double-play turn.

Reyes might have misfired with anyone (or no one) sliding in, and Murphy might very well have been safe regardless. And even if it has happened three times, it’s not nearly enough to call it more than a series of coincidences. But it’s the type of thing we like to credit to Nieuwenhuis’ football build and mentality, which are part of what make him a fun player to watch when he’s going well — even if most players are pretty fun to watch when they’re going well.

In any case, whether due to Nieuwenhuis’ balls-out bro-dom or just good luck, the fielder’s choice wound up making a big difference in the game last night. It provided an at-bat for David Wright with Murphy on first. Buehrle left an 0-2 pitch out over the plate and Wright put it on the Party Deck to give the Mets a 2-1 lead that they’d never relinquish.

It was a pretty good symbolic sequence of things going right for the Mets: new-Met Nieuwenhuis gets on, new-Marlin Reyes throws a ball away to possibly keep the inning alive, and Wright hits a home run that would have been a long out last year (and it likely would have been — watch the replay: Emilio Bonifacio had time to slow up for the wall then try to jump for it). And then for added emphasis Lucas Duda smacked a single.

Oh, and R.A. Dickey threw seven strong innings despite the chill.

Over at Amazin’ Avenue, Matthew Callan takes an entertaining look at Ike Davis’ habit of complaining about called strikes. As Callan notes, Davis has been victimized by some particularly brutal calls lately, but there’s a chicken-egg component to that.

Jose Reyes returned to Citi Field today. By 3:35 p.m., there were some 30 members of the media waiting in a clumsy semicircle around an empty spot in the visitors’ dugout left vacant for Reyes. By 3:50 when Reyes emerged, there were probably 50, armed with voice recorders and video cameras and microphones of various sizes.

“He’s innocent!” Someone shouted as Reyes took his seat.

“You want to interview somebody?” Reyes said, and everyone laughed, and then Reyes answered a bunch of questions and said a bunch more things that you’ve probably already read by now and freaked out about. And then a few hours later the Mets and Marlins played a baseball game good enough to remind everyone that the things baseball players say are generally far less interesting than the things baseball players do on baseball fields, since those are the reasons we care so much about them in the first place.

Which is to say: In the top of the first inning, Reyes torched a flyball to center field that Kirk Nieuwenhuis ran down and Emilio Bonificaio lined a single past Ruben Tejada, then Johan Santana didn’t allow another ball out of the infield until the sixth inning. He struck out 11 batters in 6 2/3 innings, hitting spots with his fastball and flummoxing rubes with his changeup and slider.

Say what you will and already have about the Mets’ injury woes. Jason Bay, Mike Pelfrey and Andres Torres are hurt, sure. But a man who’s practically a medical miracle took the mound for the Mets today and struck out 11 Marlins. Remember that part of it too.

This baseball game also featured:

– Josh Johnson nearly equaling Santana.

– Two plays at the plate — one for each team. Daniel Murphy was caught trying to score on a close play on a pitch that got away from John Buck. In Santana’s last inning, Giancarlo Stanton singled then Gaby Sanchez lined a double off the wall in left and giant awesome Giancarlo Stanton came charging home. Mike Baxter bobbled the ball, then his throw pulled Tejada toward second base. Tejada spun and fired home in plenty of time to get Stanton, but the ball short-hopped Josh Thole and went through his legs.

– With two outs in the seventh, four different Marlins pitchers (Johnson, Randy Choate, Steve Cishek and Mike Dunn) combining to walk four consecutive Mets to force home the tying run. Ozzie Guillen looked like he was endeavoring some sort of performance-art meta-criticism of Terry Collins’ managing. It was great.

– A running, diving catch from the aforementioned Stanton.

– A Lucas Duda line drive that both put the Mets ahead for good and felled pitcher Edward Mujica, prompting parts of the crowd to start chanting, “DU-DA! DU-DA!”, which, given the sight of Mujica splayed in front of the mound, seemed pretty merciless and made the whole scene seem like something out of Gladiator.

– Did I mention Johan Santana struck out 11 guys in 6 2/3? He looks sad here but he shouldn’t be: