For Collins, no ‘right’ answers for the lineup

DETROIT — With so much talk about white flags in New York baseball last week, the Mets submitted a lineup Saturday night featuring shortstop Matt Reynolds, left fielder Ty Kelly and, for the pièce de résistance, designated hitter Rene Rivera. Yeesh. This starting nine served as a collective message to the rest of the industry: Load up on your southpaws, folks. This current Mets roster, with so many prominent righty bats and switch-hitters on the disabled list, is as vulnerable to lefty pitching as Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are to questions about integrity and policy, respectively.

The Tigers’ struggling sophomore left-hander Matt Boyd hardly silenced the Mets at Comerica Park. Yet he kept them in check for five innings, and the Tigers pounded Logan Verrett to take their second straight game in this series, 6-5, and put the onus on Mets ace Jacob deGrom to avoid the sweep on Sunday.

“We’re trying to get our righthanded hitters in the lineup a little bit,” Terry Collins said before the game. “It kind of gives everybody else a chance to catch a blow.”

The problem does not lie in the concept of stacking a lineup with righty hitters against a lefty pitcher. That goes as standard operating procedure, and the sophomore Boyd entered Saturday’s game having been knocked around at a .262/.322/.470 clip by right-handed batters. That’s why Collins also started Wilmer Flores at first base. Throw in catcher Travis d’Arnaud and switch-hitting second baseman Neil Walker and they totaled six righty bats.

No, it’s about the specific righties to which Collins turned, in this first Mets game against a lefty since Yoenis Cespedes went on the disabled list. Reynolds, Kelly and Rivera will not be confused with Miguel Cabrera, Manny Machado and Mike Trout — or, more relevant, Cespedes and his fellow injured righty-hitting (or switch-hitting) Mets, Asdrubal Cabrera, Juan Lagares, Jose Reyes, Justin Ruggiano and David Wright — any time soon.

Against Boyd, the Mets’ six righty bats went 4-for-13, all singles, with three walks, a .308/.438/.308 slash line. Not terrible, but not enough given the Mets’ ongoing struggles with runners in scoring position. Jay Bruce and Curtis Granderson, a pair of lefty hitters, each hit a solo homer. The Mets made it close in the seventh, thanks to a pair of Tigers errors, but fizzled after that.

The Twittersphere went berserk when the Mets posted their lineup on Saturday. Nevertheless, the stark reality is Collins had no great options. Michael Conforto, who entered the game as a pinch hitter, took a career .133/.185/.150 slash line (in 65 plate appearances) against lefties into Saturday’s game.

“That was something we tried to address a while ago, when we said, ‘Hey, look, there’s a fine line you’ve got to walk here. Are you going to develop guys, or are you going to put the best lineup that we think is going to win?’ ” Collins said. “And right now, we need to win some games. He’s not hitting lefties. So I put somebody in there I thought could get some hits off lefties.

“We’ve got to win games. If there comes a time when Sandy [Alderson] and I sit down and we decide, ‘OK, we’ve got to decide what this guy is doing.’ … We all think the world of him. We all think he’s going to be a very, very good hitter. But he’s scuffling a little bit. I’ve got to put somebody out there who maybe can get some hits.”

Brandon Nimmo? He had two singles in five at-bats against lefties, with that tiny sample hidden beneath an overall slash line of .237/.297/.288.

There’s just no way for the Mets to put together a formidable lineup against southpaws until some of their guys get healthy. Reyes is on track to return first, perhaps as soon as this week. The team hopes that both Cabrera and Cespedes return by the end of the month. Lagares and Wright are done for the season. The August trade market isn’t likely to find much of interest.

Meet the Mets. Greet the Mets with a lefty, and the odds favor you feeling good about the experience.