The Mets are certainly not in the place they thought they would be coming into this season, and frustrations seem to be mounting in the clubhouse.
After the Mets’ grueling loss to the Cardinals 6-0, in which they mustered only three hits and endured a poor Steven Matz start, manager Terry Collins did his best to diagnose the issue.
“If you’re looking at one of the things that’s got to happen during the break, we’ve got to get some energy back,” Collins told reporters. “We’re not playing with much energy right now and I’m hoping that the rest will help out.”
“The record speaks for itself,” Collins continued. “No matter if you said, geez, we played without a lot of big pieces. We are not happy with where we are, certainly, so we’ve got to use this time to reassess what we’ve got to do in the second half and hopefully we start getting some of the pieces back.”
While there are many reasons the Mets have been losing baseball games, that was one explanation right fielder Jay Bruce doesn’t agree with.
“I don’t see it,” Bruce responded. “That’s his opinion, and I respect that he thinks that, but I feel like we have a group of guys who go about their business pretty professionally and pretty consistently. We’ve underachieved as a team for sure, but we look to do better in the second half.”
Terry Collins seemed to take issue with the lack of a team-wide effort and suggested that the only way the Mets could get back into the postseason will require everyone stepping up and playing to their expectations, and not just a couple of players in that clubhouse.
“In order for us to get back in the race, we have to start playing complete baseball. We can’t just ride one or two guys. We have to get the entire lineup swinging the bats.”
The Mets are 39-47 entering the All Star break. They are 12.0 games out of first place in the NL East and 10.5 games back in the Wild Card with seven teams ahead of them. Their chances to make the playoffs have shrinked to 1.2 percent.
