The pitiful New York Mets endured a brutal loss to the cellar dwelling Miami Marlins on Friday night at Marlins Park. After playing a game of catch up the entire match, the Mets fell just short of Miami in the ultimate 8-6 loss.
“We fought back the last couple of nights, but we have to do a better job of putting ourselves in a position where we don’t have to fight back,” Mets manager Mickey Callaway said following the loss. “That’s something we’re not doing right now and we have to do a better job of it.”
Jacob deGrom came out of the game after five innings of work, giving up seven runs to the last place team.
“I felt good the first two [innings] and then things got kind of out of control and tonight’s on me,” deGrom said, according to Mike Puma of the New York Post. “I did a terrible job out there. These guys did nothing but battle and I let it get out of hand.”
Down 7-1 to in the seventh inning, the Mets’ offense attempted to mount a comeback to bail out its struggling ace.
The floundering Todd Frazier kicked off the frame with a line out, but the rest of the offense started to get to Marlins starter Trevor Richards. Juan Lagares registered an unexpected hit and J.D. Davis came through in the clutch with a two-run home run to dead center to shorten the gap from a 7-1 Marlins lead to 7-3.
Richards was then taken out and Brandon Nimmo stepped up to the plate against southpaw Adam Conley. Nimmo logged a single, followed by a walk from Amed Rosario walks and it looked like the team was starting to put pressure on Miami, however, Robinson Cano took to the batters box and grounded into a double play to end the inning and didn’t bother to run hard to first, which came under much scrutiny from the media and fans alike.
Mickey Callaway mentioned in his post game interview that Cano apologized during the game for not running out the ground ball, saying that Cano saw the scoreboard which said there was two outs when there was only one. Cano thought the inning ended after the out at second, but there is no excuse for a seasoned professional to make such an amateur mistake.
“He came up proactively on his own and came up to me, the board said two outs, he thought there were two outs at the time, and he understands no matter what the board said, he needs to understand how many outs there are,” Callaway said, according to Matt Ehalt of Yahoo!
New York was able to put up a three spot in the top of the eighth, but couldn’t topple the lowly Marlins in an all around brutal loss.
The skidding Mets have now fallen three games under .500 and 4.5 games behind the Phillies for first place in the National League East.
When a team struggles, the fingers all point towards the manager.
Callaway said that he is not worried about job security right now, he just wants to focus on winning games.
“I don’t think about that,” Callaway said. “All I am worried about is improving the players.”
General manager Brodie Van Wagenen defended Callaway to a certain degree, according to Puma.
“I think Mickey has been accountable for what we all want,” Van Wagenen said. “And I have said from the beginning I want to make sure I am doing the same and I think our players feel the same way. We have experienced adversity, we have played well at times and I think Mickey knows what is in front of us.”
While there were a lot of promising offensive outings for struggling players like Frazier, Nimmo, and Wilson Ramos (2-for-4 with a walk), the team keeps falling short in these come from behind losses. The team did have some fight in the last three innings of the game, however, they looked lost the entirety of the night against the sophomore season pitcher in Trevor Richards, on a team that is projected to finish 30 out of 30 teams.
Tomorrow will be a pivotal game for New York and Callaway, who is likely the next to go if the Mets skid continues.
