Struggling Mets are limping to the finish line again
New York— Terry Collins doesn’t care that David Wright and Ike Davis are out with injuries or that Marlon Byrd and John Buck no longer are with the Mets. He expects the players he has now to perform. They are not. Ryan Zimmerman, Adam LaRoche and Wilson Ramos homered off Aaron Harang in his Mets debut, and the Washington Nationals beat New York 7- 2 Thursday to complete a thorough four-game sweep.
While the Nationals hit a record 13 homers in a series at Citi Field, the Mets had 21 hits total for the set, none were long balls.
“I don’t care what the names are on the backs, we’ve got to start getting some hits. And as I’ve said before — as I said the first day of spring training, as I said when times were tough— I don’t care the names in that clubhouse, they’re big league players,” the Mets manager said. “There are expectations that come when you’re a big league player. And part of those expectations is the ability to execute when you need to. And we’re not doing that right now.”
The Mets have lost nine of 11 and fallen to 64-81, ensuring their fifth straight non-winning record— all at Citi Field.
Anthony Rendon also connected for Washington in a series that helped the Nationals remain on the fringe of the NL wild-card race. They moved within 5 ½ games of idle Cincinnati for the final spot with the rain-interrupted win.
Zimmerman added an RBI double in the eighth after Denard Span extended his career-best hitting streak to 23 games with a leadoff double. The Nationals won 17 of those games.
“I take nothing for granted. Nobody else does either,” Nationals manager Davey Johnson said of the playoff chase. “We get a homestand; keep things going. A lot can happen in those 10 days.”
Tanner Roark (6-0) allowed two runs and six hits in six innings of his second big league start. Roark pitched six scoreless innings Sunday against Miami.
New York signed Harang (0-1) to a minor league deal on Sept. 1, less than a week after the team learned ace Matt Harvey had a partially torn ligament in his pitching elbow. Harang allowed the three homers and a single in six innings, struck out 10 and walked one. The right-hander was 5-11 with a 5.76 ERA in 22 starts this year for the Seattle Mariners.
“I felt good with throwing some of my pitches,” Harang said. “Besides really the two mistake pitches I felt really good about my day.”
It was all or nothing for the Nationals against Harang until Bryce Harper singled to center with two outs in the sixth. Harang gave up only the three homers and struck out 10 before Harper’s hit. Span was the only Nationals player that spent any time on the bases— he walked with one out in the third.
“I thought he threw good. He moved the ball around, struck out guys. The way they’re swinging, that’s hard to do and I thought he did a very good job,” Collins said. “They hit three homers, but they’re hitting homers all the time.”