Callaway, Mets are trying to figure it out
PHOENIX – Mets rookie manager Mickey Callaway gets up from behind his office desk, pulls out a chair, motions for you to sit down on the couch, and the conversation begins.
It’s almost as if he should be the one lying down, asking how one of the most vaunted pitching coaches in the land with the Indians, helping his team come within one run of a World Series championship, landed in a miserable place like this.
“There’s been sleepless nights,” Callaway tells USA TODAY. “It’s not that I’m worrying about myself, but when you see these guys working so hard, and when the results don’t come, you can’t help but think about that. You lay in bed at night and say, ‘OK, what am I going to say to this guy? What am I going to say to that guy? Do you leave him alone? Do you let him work through it?’
“Those are the reasons I don’t sleep is to try to right the ship, not necessarily because we lost a game.”
So never toss and turn in bed second-guessing yourself over moves?
“No,” Callaway says, “I get secondguessed enough.”
Welcome to life in New York, where not every first-year manager like Aaron Boone inherits the Yankees. Or in Boston, where Alex Cora is handed a team that won the American League East the past two years and given a welcome package in J.D. Martinez. Or in Washington, where Dave Martinez takes over a franchise with Bryce Harper and Max Scherzer gunning for three consecutive National League East titles.
These are the Mets, a team that was playing in the World Series three years ago, earned a wild-card spot two years ago but is now just a shell of itself.
The Mets opened the season winning 11 of their first 12 games and have since played the worst baseball in the NL, losing 29 of their last 42. They went from 10 games above .500 to 10 games below .500 in the quickest time in major league history, finally pulling off back-to-back victories over the weekend for the first time in a month.
Yoenis Cespedes, the man designed to be the centerpiece of the offense, hasn’t played a game since May 14 because of a hip flexor injury. The Mets have no idea when they’ll see him again. Jay Bruce, their biggest free agent acquisition during the winter, is hitting .212 with three homers and none since May 7. Their bullpen, with closer Jeurys Familia activated Sunday, has lost a major league-leading 18 games, yielding a 6.42 ERA in the past 22 games.
And all you need to know about their offensive ineptitude is that ace Jacob deGrom is yielding a 0.87 ERA in 10 starts since April 21 and the Mets are 2-8 in those games.
They’ve tried clubhouse meetings. Closed-door meetings. They even had meetings with their position players at first base, second base and third base one afternoon in Phoenix. They’ve had promotions. Demotions. Midseason veteran pickups (Jose Bautista). Midseason veteran dumps (Adrian Gonzalez).
It has made little difference, and just like Terry Collins before him, and Jerry Manuel before that, and even back to the days of Willie Randolph and Art Howe, Callaway finds himself as the human pinata for the Mets’ woes.
Sure, there have been mistakes, just like with any other rookie manager. There was the infamous lineup card snafu, one that Callaway says he still thinks about every single game. The scarcity of double-switches, with relievers already having 21 at-bats. The questionable moves. The 7-14 record in one-run games.