Terry Collins—like all managers—often gets second guessed. Collins tends to make it easier by making head scratching decisions that often don’t work.
In Wednesday’s 3-1 loss the Mets were somehow in a game despite their bats being completely lost. The Braves had chance after chance to win the game and strike outs, double plays, poor base running by the Braves, whatever the Mets needed to get out of it, they got.
One of the reasons the Mets were able to keep the game tied was the Mets had shutdown Freddie Freeman all game. His first four at-bats he pulled the ball to the second basemen (though the first two were well struck, the last two were not). That fourth at bat had been with a runner on base; double play. He came up for his fifth at bat against Josh Edgin, who promptly struck him out, throwing a 93 MPH fastball right by him.
On the other hand, Matt Kemp was raking all game. Two doubles in four at bats, one which had one hopped the wall. He had one bone headed at-bat where he didn’t run out a ground ball in front of the plate, but he was the hitting star for Braves going into extra innings.
And comes the pivotal point in the game. Rafael Montero was on the mound. The poise and control he had exhibited in spring training, gone. In 1.2 innings, he had already walked three and let up two hits. A double play had got him out of trouble in the eleventh but in the twelfth he was in deeper trouble: with two outs there were men on second and third and Freeman and Kemp coming up.
Josh Smoker was up and ready to go, but inexplicably Collins left Montero in. They intentionally walked Freeman and his 0-5 instead of bringing Smoker in to face him, and left Montero, who had already walked three, to pitch with the bases loaded to Kemp, working on a two double day.
Kemp promptly ripped a ball over Reyes’ glove and the game was history. Oh, Terry. Seems like you make decisions like this, well, every day.
Overreacting to a bad managing call? That’s just the start. The bats looked as anemic and drab as they did last year—a home run or nothing. Reyes looked terrible, lost at the plate and weak in the field. Ty Kelly showed why he is a minor leaguer and begged the question why he’s on our bench at all. D’arnaud now has fifteen RBIs in his last 76 games played.
And the Nationals might have built an insurmountable lead with their 6-4 win over the Marlins.
Oh, and Daniel Murphy’s hitting .500. Probably will hit that all year.
Gonna be a long year. Maybe we pull out the series tomorrow and we can be back in the World Series come October.
