Less than 24 hours after calling the baseball season a marathon, Mets managerTerry Collins decided to run for mayor of Panic City. Moments after his sluggish Mets beat Miami, 2-1, to snap a four-game losing streak, Collins went off in a press conference, calling the victory “a game we had to have.”
When the season is less than ten games old, there’s no such thing as a “must win” game. How can there be when there are 154 games left to be played? On Opening Day, I wrote this season would be Collins’ toughest job of his career because it carried with it the weight of expectations.
He has not dealt with this slow start well.
Collins handled the Mets masterfully last season in guiding them to the World Series through the landmines of a key injury to David Wright, the innings-flap concerning Matt Harvey, and nearly a two-month offensive slump. There were other pitfalls, but Collins wouldn’t let his team step into them.
This afternoon he stepped into one himself. It’s not so much admitting he reads and listens to the media and fans, but in conceding it is getting to him. No manager should ever admit to that, especially on April 13.
“I’m worried about the perception there’s no energy here,” Collins told reporters in response to a question why he considered today’s game so important this early in the season. “That’s completely not true. I’m not deaf. I’m not blind. I hear what people are saying. I’ve been hearing that we’re not prepared, that we’re overconfident and it made me sick to my stomach.”
“We’re trying. People better understand we’re out to win. We care. We’re going to get this going. We had to send the message that this team is as dedicated this year as it was last year. I thought it was important for our fan base to stay excited. I thought today was a game we had to win. We need to show people we need business.”
That’s why he played Wright in an afternoon game following a night game; why he rode reliever Jim Henderson on the day after he threw a career high 34 pitches; why he used Jeurys Familia for a five-out save for the third straight game. He said he would have done things differently if the Mets were 5-2 going into the game instead of 2-5.
That’s amazing. It is absurd.
Things haven’t gone for the Mets the way we’ve wanted or expected, but we’re eight games into this season. It’s foolish to think they can’t turn things around. Collins has been around long enough to know a hot week can change the outlook of a team.
He said he didn’t want people to have the perception they weren’t prepared. Instead, after Collins’ melt down the perception is one of panic – not from the media but from him – and that’s far worse.
Follow me on Twitter at @jdelcos
