SITTING FUELED BRUCE’S RISING
Decision to bench struggling slugger looks Terry good now
PHILADELPHIA — It was not quite two weeks ago when Terry Collins pinch-hit Eric Campbell for Jay Bruce in an important moment, and then kept the slumping slugger out of the lineup for the next four days.
At which point it was fair to wonder if Bruce would ever be heard from again as a Met.
On Friday night, in fact, Terry Collins admitted as much when he was asked if he feared he might have lost him with those benchings. “Yes,’’ Collins said. “Immensely. “He’s a star and stars don’t like to be embarrassed or sat down. But I told him I thought he needed some time off to clear his head. I told him it worked for Neil (Walker) so I wanted to try it.’’
It was a gutsy decision because, as Collins said, “Jay Bruce is a star and he had a lot of people in that clubhouse in his corner, and the one thing you can’t do as a manager is lose the clubhouse.’’
The manager was willing to take the risk. And for all his in-game moves that make fans crazy, Collins may be as good as anyone at managing players, which is the biggest job of all.
Bruce’s resurrection at the plate highlights his work behind the scenes in a
season when it seems to have paid huge dividends, as the Mets are on the verge of completing the unlikeliest of late-season surges to the playoffs.
After all the injuries, all the failures at the plate with runners in scoring position, this team has all but played its way into hosting the wild-card game at Citi Field on Wednesday.
Friday night’s 5-1 victory over the Phillies assured the Mets of at least a tie for a wild-card spot, meaning that one more win over the next two days, or one loss by the Cardinals and Giants, seals their position as the first wild-card team.
With a 26-12 record since Aug. 19, they’re playing their best baseball of the season, as they continue to get outstanding pitching from fill-ins like Robert Gsellman, who pitched six strong innings to lower his ERA to a rather remarkable 2.42.
And the offense looks dangerous. Most significantly, Bruce hit a home run for a third straight game as part of a 3-for-4 night, and, out of nowhere, it seems, he is one more reason to believe these Mets have a chance to do more damage in October than anyone would have thought possible a month ago.
Suddenly, in fact, the idea that they could go toe-to-toe with the mighty Cubs doesn’t seem so far-fetched.
Of course, getting past Madison Bumgarner, their likely opponent in the wild-card game, would be no small task, but at least it’s looking as though they’ll be able to save Noah Syndergaard for that matchup, rather than needing him here Sunday to clinch the playoff berth.
In any case, as hopeless as Bruce looked for some six weeks, the tradedeadline deal for him now looks as if it could still pay big dividends, as he is hitting .500 (10-for-20) in his last six games.
“We knew when we got him, if he could start swinging the bat he changes our whole lineup,’’ Collins said. “And he does. It’s coming at the right time, when we needed him.’’
So what finally helped Bruce turn the corner and put to rest the notion — for now, anyway — that he can be as productive on the big stage in New York as he was in Cincinnati? Bruce insists it was just a bad slump at the worst possible time, but you have to give Collins credit for the risk he took by pinch-hitting Campbell for him that night against the Braves, and then letting him sit for four days. He couldn’t be sure how it would play with Bruce or his ballclub, but he trusted that his handson style in the clubhouse had earned him a certain trust with his players that would help. “That’s why I guess I overdo it in my conversations with these guys,’’ Collins said. “But they’ve gotta know where I stand and I kneed to know where they stand.’’ In this case, it wasn’t easy. He knew that Bruce thought he could play his way out of his slump. He finally had to tell him he thought otherwise. As Bruce admitted after Friday’s game, “It was uncomfortable for both of us. I don’t want to have that conversation with the manager either.’’
Bruce said he’s not sure the days off actually helped. He still believes he would have played his way out of the slump eventually.’’
“But Terry felt he needed to give me a breather and I completely respect that,’’ he said. “And I let him know I’d be ready when he needed me.’’
It was a tough call for Collins, but it might turn out to be the most important one he made all season.