NATS STRAND METS
Amazin’s fail in clutch as Washington takes second straight
This managing stuff was a lot easier for Mickey Callaway when it seemed his every move produced the desired results over his first couple of weeks. But he’s lost the golden touch in two straight losses to the Nationals, particularly with a questionable decision to pinch-hit Jose Reyes in a key spot on Tuesday night. Reyes, who admitted after the game that he’s “kind of lost” at the plate these days, still hitless on the season, struck out with the tying run on third in the sixth inning, and the Mets went on to lose 5-2 to the Nationals.
And so a series that offered an opportunity for the Mets to bury the Nationals deep in the standings has instead brought their rivals back to life, starting with that eighthinning meltdown on Monday night.
They’re still in first place in the NL East but suddenly some of the feel-good air from that 12-2 start has gone out of the balloon for the Mets, after they failed to bounce back from that killer loss.
Reyes certainly wasn’t the only culprit, as a lot of Mets’ hitters failed in pivotal moments, leaving 11 runners on base on a night when Gio Gonzalez wasn’t particularly sharp.
And there was good news for the Mets on this night as well, as Zack Wheeler delivered a solid start to back up his performance last week against the Marlins, perhaps giving Callaway and the front office reason to consider finding him a permanent spot in the rotation even when Jason Vargas comes back.
But sometimes a game feels as if it comes down to one moment, one big decision, and in this case it was Callaway’s decision to pinch-hit Reyes in that sixth inning.
With runners at first and third and one out, the Mets trailing 3-2, Callaway chose Reyes to hit over Michael Conforto, Adrian Gonzalez, and Brandon Nimmo.
Predictably, based on the way Reyes has swung the bat so far this season, the moment was too big for him as he struck out on what amounted to an emergency half-swing of sorts at an inside fastball from lefty reliever Sammy Solis.
“I was kind of in-between,” he said afterward. “I was looking for something away. I’m kind of lost a little bit right now.”
In fact, the strikeout left Reyes 0-for17 on the season, and when Amed Rosario popped out behind him, the inning was over and the Mets never got that close again.
Reyes also admitted he is struggling with his role as a backup and a pinch-hitter, something he’s never done much of in his career, yet Callaway was playing what he thought were the percentages, clearly preferring to stay away from the lefty-lefty matchups with his other pinch-hitters at that point.
“It was a good matchup,” the manager said. “It made sense because we had all lefties on the bench (other than Reyes). Had we had a right-handed hitter, maybe we would have gone a different route. But I have confidence in Jose Reyes in that spot.”
I don’t think Reyes is a lost cause — he was awful early last season as well. But as badly as he’s going right now, I would have taken my chances with Gonzalez or Conforto, who can both hit lefties, or perhaps even Nimmo, who has shown a knack for pinch-hitting.
Gonzalez, in particular, is the type of savvy hitter you want in a situation where you just need a sacrifice fly to score the tying run. Only last week Callaway used Gonzalez in a similar spot against a Marlins’ lefty and he delivered a go-ahead single up the middle.
Maybe you can make the case the manager wanted to save his best pinch-hitters for later in the game, but that was a chance to change the entire feel of the game. Even if the Mets had only tied it there, you never know how that affects the course of events that followed.
And as it turned out, Conforto wound up pinch-hitting in the eighth inning with two outs and nobody on, the Mets trailing 5-2, and walked, while Gonzalez never did hit.
In any case, perhaps all of this was inevitable and the law of averages is catching up with Callaway, after so many of his decisions worked out perfectly during that 12-2 start.
In fact, I got the feeling some fans were aghast that Callaway had mentioned after Monday’s meltdown that his team needed to make sure that one bad inning didn’t lead to a tailspin. “Tailspin? Did he tailspin? He shouldn’t say tailspin.” In other words, fans wondered: why would he even suggest such a possibility?
Well, the answer seems obvious enough: Callaway doesn’t have any of the scar tissue that comes with being a Mets fan, so to him he wasn’t tempting fate by suggesting that one bad loss could short-circuit his team’s hot start.
He was merely stating the obvious, and as he said before Tuesday’s game, he did so because of the confidence he has that there is nothing flukey about the Mets’ hot start.
A second straight loss to the dreaded Nationals doesn’t really change any of that. Or does it?
Maybe it’s not a tailspin, but Tuesday night the Mets look like they had a hangover from Monday night’s collapse. With a lackluster offense, the Mets dropped their second straight game to the Nationals, losing 5-2 at Citi FIeld. It is the first series the Mets (12-4) have lost this season and the first time they have lost two games in a row. The Nationals (9-9) had rallied for seven runs off the Mets bullpen in the final two innings on Monday night. After that loss, Mickey Callaway had said the Mets were a good team and could not let that game put them in a tailspin. Tuesday was not the bounceback he was expecting. The Mets were 0-for-9 with runners in scoring position, stranding 11 and let the Nationals run all over them. The Mets allowed three stolen bases — all led to runs. Tuesday, the Nationals did most of their damage against starter Zack Wheeler. He allowed three runs on seven hits. He walked three and struck out two in six innings work. Against a team that hit him hard in spring training, Wheeler had to grind, but with his two hits on offense, he gave the Mets more than a chance. Trea Turner had three hits (two off Wheeler), reached base four times, scored twice and stole a base. Moises Sierra had two hits and catcher Pedro Severino drove in two runs for the Nationals, who jumped out to 3-0 lead after four innings. Wheeler sparked the Mets rally in the fifth, leading off with his career-high second single of the night. Amed Rosario doubled and Wheeler beat home a wide throw on Asdrubal Cabrera’s sacrifice fly to center field. Rosario scored on Yoenis Cespedes’ ground out to first, when Ryan Zimmerman’s throw to the plate was offline. The Nationals then scored twice off Robert Gsellman, who did not pitch in the bullpen meltdown the night before.