Ed Delany, MMO
Mets manager Mickey Callaway criticized his players’ fundamentals on Sunday after their loss to the Houston Astros. He spoke with his team hours before addressing the situation to the media.
“We got to do things a little bit better than we’ve been doing them,” Callaway said. “You have to throw the ball where it’s supposed to go. You have to run out balls. That’s going to start happening.”
While Callaway didn’t call out any players by name, he attributes some of the early troubles to the new coaching staff learning their roles.
Additionally, part of the rant stemmed from a question he was asked about roster cuts. The current Spring Training group consists of 56 players.
“We’re still trying to get a feel for these guys and the baseball that they know,” Callaway said. “It hasn’t been ideal, I’ll say that. I think we need to do a better job at it, for sure.
“There’s fundamentals that you have to do to play the game right. We can’t throw to the wrong bag and throw balls away. We have to play the game the right way if we’re going to win. We have to do it better than everybody else.”
The Mets currently have a 5-11-2 record, but had a losing weekend, including a sloppy 10-3 loss to the New York Yankees on Saturday.
This is the first time Callaway has been openly critical of his team, however, during Spring Training there are always peaks and valleys. Hopefully, his talk with players will yield some positive results.
