PRETTY IN PINK?
The Mets were beaten by the Pittsburgh Pirates by the score of 3-2 this afternoon in front of a nicely packed Mother’s Day crowd at Citi Field.
Matt Harvey started and while he pitched good enough to win, he wasn’t at his best and he seemed to rely mostly on a variety of breaking balls and off-speed stuff rather than his usual 95-98 mph fastball. He tossed seven innings and allowed two earned runs on five hits, two walks and an uncharacteristically low four strikeouts. He is now winless in his last four starts. Despite Harvey not having his A-Game, a couple of clutch hits could have made the young right-hander 5-0.
Terry Collins unveiled his revamped lineup which was an epic failure today. In fact, the Mets offense has piled up 28 strikeouts in the last two games. After the game, Collins said that was “because his guys are trying to hit homers.”
Collins is committed the following four at the top of the lineup going forward and emphasized that “Ike Davis is our cleanup hitter, end of story.”
Ruben Tejada: 0-for-3
Daniel Murphy: 1-for-4
David Wright: 0-for-3
Ike Davis: 0-for-4
The math is ugly as they combined to go 1-for-14. Hope they do better tomorrow…
Mets were outscored 21-7 during the last three losses to the Pirates. Today they only mustered four hits including a home run from Lucas Duda, his eighth longball of the season. But get this… Eight home runs and only 12 RBI in 102 at-bats this season. Still, that’s better than Ike davis who has just 9 RBI in 110 at-bats with 39 strikeouts. When he struck out in his final at-bat, you could hear the boos as far away as Staten Island.
This team is not hitting and the Mets ranks 13th in the NL with a .234 batting average and last in the league with 264 hits. If Gary Cohen tells me one more time about how they rank 5th in On-Base Percentage and walks, I think I’m going to chuck my remote through the TV.
Daniel Murphy and John Buck have returned back to planet earth after orbiting around the planet for four week in April.
The bullpen was ineffective and Scott Rice took the loss. Bobby Parnell struggled through 1 1/3 innings allowing three baserunners. He might be unavailable tomorrow after throwing 30 pitches.
Defensively, Juan Lagares made this incredibly sick, sick, sick, catch in centerfield that had to be seen to be believed. It was the highlight of the game for the Mets. He dives forward with his outstretched glove, the ball bounces off the tip of it, and he refocuses and catches it again before it hit the ground. Wow…
This was a disastrous homestand for more reasons than one, and the Mets now find themselves at 14-20 and buried in fourth place in the NL East. They set sail for St. Louis to face the hottest and winningest team in baseball on Monday. The Cardinals have won nine of their last nine led by Carlos Beltran who leads the team with nine home runs and 23 RBI while posting a .308/.341/.558 batting line. Jeremy Hefner (0-4. 4.63 ERA) will oppose Lance Lynn (5-1, 2.72) and try to stop the bleeding.
UH OH, HERE COME THE MIGHTY METS…
