7th-inning retch
If you wanted to see a microcosm of what has been wrong with the Mets’ offense lately — or all season — the bottom of the seventh inning Thursday would be a good place to start.
In fairness, though, who would want to?
Even for the Mets, their failure to score a run with the bases loaded and no one out in a game they wound up losing 2-1 to the Rockies at Citi Field stood out.
“We’ve got to do better than that,” said Wilmer Flores, who flied out to shallow center to end the inning. “We’ve said it before because we know hitting in those situations has been tough, but we really had to score there.”
The frame opened with the Mets leading 1-0 and Jacob deGrom rolling along through seven scoreless innings.
After Rene Rivera singled to lead off the inning, with his third hit of the game, Alejandro De Aza continued his recent resurgence with a double to left-center.
That’s when things started to get a little strange, as Terry Collins opted to use Yoenis Cespedes to pinch hit for deGrom, despite a sore right quad that kept him out of the starting lineup.
Not surprisingly, the Rockies took the bat out of Cespedes’ hands by walking him intentionally to fill the bases.
“It was second and third,” Collins said. “No matter where you hit [Cespedes], no matter who was coming up, he was going to have to hit that inning, so I said, ‘Let’s just walk him now, let’s get the bases loaded and get the top of the order up and see what’s going to happen.’ But we knew they were going to walk him.’’
Collins followed by going to the lefty-swinging Kelly Johnson instead of Juan Lagares against right-hander Scott Oberg. Another lefthanded bat, Michael Conforto, remained on the bench.
Johnson grounded into a forceout at home to bring up Curtis Granderson, who whiffed for the third time Thursday.
Flores followed with his harmless fly ball and the Mets headed to the eighth still clinging to a one-run lead Jeurys Familia ultimately gave away.
A day after going 2-for-14 with runners in scoring position, the Mets went 1-for-9.