HARVEY THROWS HEAT BUT METS WITHER:
Latest Mets collapse won’t panic manager
MIAMI — The fire alarm whooped, bright, strobe lights flashed and a recorded announcement over the loud speakers inside the visitors’ clubhouse told everyone to get out of Marlins Park. It was obviously a malfunctioning alarm, but the Mets were more than happy to oblige and get the heck out of what had been a house of horrors for them over the weekend.
For the third straight day, the Mets’ bullpen blew a lead late. Sunday they lost their third straight in a particularly dramatic fashion. After breaking up a no-hit bid in the eighth, the Mets rallied to tie the game with two outs in the top of the ninth and made what looked like a gamesaving play at the plate in the bottom of the inning.
Then Addison Reed, the most rested and most trusted of the Mets’ taxed bullpen, the only choice to pitch the ninth, gave up a walkoff home run to J.T. Riddle, costing the Mets a 4-2 loss.
But while alarms were literally sounding in the ballpark after the Mets dropped their second series to the Marlins this season, Terry Collins was confidently saying there is no reason to panic.
“This is a good team. This is a good baseball team,” the Mets manager said. “We have issues like everybody else. We’re trying to mesh a pitching staff we’ve got to be careful of and a bullpen we’ve got to be careful of. But, we’re going to be OK.
“I just told the guys, we came on the road .500, we’re going home above .500,” Collins continued. “We’ve got to take that as a positive not a negative. Should we have won more? Maybe. But we didn’t.”
This series certainly showed that the Mets have some issues, but they are small fires they can put out.
Their bullpen is a concern. It is spent, especially after having to throw 11.1 scoreless innings on Thursday night in the Mets’ 16-inning win here. The limits on the starting pitching, the commitment to keeping those arms healthy, is going to be a burden on the bullpen for a while. Their lineup is also full of streaky hitters , their offense relies heavily on the home runs and struggles to manufacture runs, especially with their two leadoff hitters struggling.
But, Collins is right, there is no need to panic on April 16 with the Mets (76) returning to Citi Field on Tuesday to face the Phillies.
The Mets were clearly worn down. Their relievers and position players were still catching up from their 16-inning, five-hour, 38-minute game to start this series Thursday and from having opened the season having played 12 straight games.
“You lose three out of four, in extra innings you win, the next night you lose it by one, the next night you lose by a run, the next night you lose by a run,” Collins said of how draining this series was. “You’re in the game. I salute the guys. We’re tired here. We needed to get the day off, it couldn’t come at a better time.”
They have a scheduled day off Monday. Then they are getting a rested and ready veteran arm back to the bullpen on Thursday when Jeurys Familia, who will make his final warmup appearance Monday, comes off of his 15-game suspension for violating the AMLB joint domestic violence policy. nd the Mets saw really encouraging signs from some players they need to develop over this seven-day road trip. Travis d’Arnaud had a career-high four hits, including the game-winning homer in the 16th inning Thursday night, finishing the trip 8-for-21 (.380) with two home runs. He also made two outstanding plays at the plate Sunday. Lefty reliever Josh Smoker pitched the best the Mets have seen him, throwing a career-high three scoreless innings Thursday. Michael Conforto has shown he can handle the role of part-time player, going 4-for-11 with a home run and four RBI on the trip.
Most encouraging was that even though they dropped three of four, the Mets were never out of these games..
“This was a strange series,” said Neil Walker, who broke up the Marlins’ no-hit bid with two outs in the eighth. “A 16-inning game and then basically three walkoffs, certainly some strange things happened on this road trip. But the good news is we came away from these two series with four wins and three losses so we’ll take the positives out of this and move into the off day and move on.”
The Mets left Marlins Park Sunday, with no panic and confident that this was just their first bump in the road.