The Mets followed up Saturday’s victory with a very sloppy, error filled game and that proved to be costly in a 6-4 loss to the Yankees in the rubber game of the Subway Series at Yankee Stadium.
The Mets made 4 errors on the field and a few other boneheaded miscues as well.
“Tonight wasn’t pretty,” Michael Cuddyer said. “It was obviously, by far, the worst game we have played.”
Coming into Sunday’s game, the Mets only committed nine errors, which was tied for 2nd fewest in the majors. They ranked 14th in defensive runs saved.
The Mets middle infield defense which was a concern coming into the season, played a big role in the Mets defeat. Daniel Murphy and Wilmer Flores each made an error in the 5th inning. And it came on back to back plays. With Brett Gardner on first base, Chris Young hit a potential double play grounder that ricocheted off Murphy.
Next batter, A-Rod hit another potential double play ground ball to Flores who touched second base for an out but sent a throw over Lucas Duda’s head at first to allow Gardner to score.
Both of them now combined to have 8 of the team’s 13 errors this season.
“We had a bad night,” manager Terry Collins said. “Up until this point, we’ve played very well. Flo had two bad games early in the year, hadn’t made an error again until tonight.” (Mike Vorkunov, NJ.com)
“I don’t know what to tell you except we’re going to keep running them out there and keep hitting them ground balls and keep trying to let them know that ‘Hey, look, you’re going to have a bad time once in awhile’. For the most part we’ve played pretty well. Tonight was a bad one.”
That was not it in terms of errant plays.
In the 6th inning, Eric Campbell stood on first with one out when Flores hit a fly out to right field. Campbell ran on that flyball and kept running and was doubled over for the 3rd out. He thought there were two outs.
“Just a boneheaded play.” said Campbell afterwards.
Murphy also made a gaffe on the basepaths. In the 6th inning, he didn’t slide into second base to break up a double play. He thought the throw would pull Yankees 2nd baseman Gregorio Petit wide.
“Yeah, he should have probably continued to slide, not that we look back at it,” said Collins.
It was just a game full of different mistakes for the Mets, which they couldn’t overcome as a result.
“There are going to be nights,” said Collins. “The throwing errors, they kind of happened. In a game like this, you can make those mistakes. You gotta know how many outs there are. You gotta be aware of alot of things. It was just a bad night. Just a bad night for us. We didn’t play well and you’re not going to win games when you give away that many outs.”
It just shows how errors and fundamental mistakes can cost a ball game. Earlier this season the Mets won a few games by taking advantage of the other team’s miscues and this time the Yankees capitalized on ours.
The Mets look to bounce back against the Marlins tonight in Miami. The fish have won their last five games in a row.
“It’s a big series, a divisional series,” Collins said about playing the Marlins. “So, we’ll see how they get themselves ready.”
