Collins ignores gut, causes more aches
ON SECOND thought, Terry Collins should have stuck with his first thought. Should have managed the Mets instead of allowing his players to manage him. Sound familiar? For after stating — or at least strongly suggesting — Wednesday night in the aftermath of Jeurys Familia’s first blown save of the season that he would not go back to the redoubtable closer on Thursday afternoon, Collins reversed course after the right-hander went to the manager before the series opener against the Rockies and told him he felt fine.
“My arm felt good. I wasn’t tired,” Familia said. “I know my body.”
And so, about 18 hours after havi ng allowed t wo ninth- inning runs on 26 pitches in what became a 5-4 defeat to the Cardinals, there indeed was Familia on the mound again to start the ninth with the Mets holding a 1-0 lead against the Rockies.
“The perfect situation to get him back out,” Collins said.
Except the results were perfectly devastating. Familia surrendered a single and a walk to the first two men he faced. The third reached on a two-strike bunt that stuck to the first-base line maybe 15-20 feet away from the plate to load the bases. A strikeout followed, then a run-scoring infield error that tied the game, and then a wild pitch on a sinker that bounced 5 feet in front of the plate that allowed the goahead run to score.
An intentional walk later and Familia was gone after eight batters and another 26 pitches, after a second consecutive blown save, after a second consecutive loss, this a 2-1 job that rocked the team back on its heels.
“I don’t have an excuse,” said Familia, who had converted his first 36 save opportunities on the season. “It happened. Nobody’s perfect in this game.
“Every time I come into the game, I try to do my job the best I can. Everybody in this room knows I give 100 percent. [But] I’m not perfect.”
Look, this did not have either the dramatic impact or meaning of last year’s World Series Game 5 when Collins famously allowed Matt Harvey to talk him out of replacing him with a 2-0 lead after eight innings against the Royals, another time the manager’s first thought was superior to his second one.
But, again, the reversal backfired. And this is a results-oriented business. As catcher Rene Rivera said a half-dozen times in analyzing the play on which he did not make a play on Daniel Descalso’s twostrike ninth-inning bunt that was a key play in New York’s demise, “That’s baseball.”
True enough, it wasn’t Collins who threw the fateful wild pitch. That was Familia. It wasn’t Collins who couldn’t handle Cristhian Adames’ routine bouncer in the ninth. That was James Loney. And it sure wasn’t Collins who failed to come through when the Mets loaded the bases with no one out in the seventh inning and were unable to build on a 1-0 lead they had nursed since the second behind Jacob deGrom. That was Kelly Johnson, Curtis Granderson and Wilmer Flores.
“To be honest, we could have blown that game open,” Collins said. “We didn’t add on.” Never mind the shift. The Mets and their manager are trying to make do with makeshift lineups. Yoenis Cespedes’ quad is an issue again. He did not start Thursday and has to be handled with care for the foreseeable future. As such, Collins has little outfield maneuverability, certainly against lefties with Michael Conforto — who struck out in the ninth as a pinch hitter against righty Carlos Estevez — 4-for-44 on the year against southpaws.
Juan Lagares being placed on the DL sure doesn’t help this team that is a bleak 6-10 since the All-Star break and an iffy 53-48 overall.
Obviously t wo consecutive defeats in late July, regardless of how difficult to swallow, are not going to sink the ship. Decisions gone wrong in one-run games — removing deGrom for a pinch hitter with runners on second and third and no out in the seventh after he had pitched seven brilliant innings that corresponded with the decision to send up Cespedes in that spot for an automatic intentional base on balls — are commonplace. Again, nobody’s perfect. Again, that’s baseball. Of course, mutual trust between a manager and his players is a primary factor over the course of a 162game season and Collins’ heart may well be his strength. But when decisions go wrong, you’d prefer they’re ones made on his first instinct and on his first thought, not second ones. Players play. Managers manage. That’s baseball, too.