On Friday night, Brad Brach had his first rough outing for the New York Mets in which he promptly loaded the bases with nobody out in the eighth inning.

Unsurprisingly, Mickey Callaway had enough watching that with the Mets down 2-1 and hoping to secure a chance at a comeback for a team becoming well known for them late in games.

The mistake wasn’t the switch to another reliever, but who Callaway chose to trust.

When the skipper went to Edwin Diaz with the bases loaded and Brett Phillips coming up, many fans watching realized what was going to happen, either a walk or a grand slam.

Well, both of those things actually almost happened.

Diaz, 25, got ahead on Phillips with a 1-2 count, but promptly threw three balls to walk in the Royals third run of the game. For reference, in his MLB career, Phillips had struck out in 95 of his 245 plate appearances prior to being recalled from Triple-A Omaha.

Bubba Starling then came up to the plate and promptly hit a line-drive single to center field to extend their lead to 4-1.

Things almost got exceptionally worse as Ryan O’Hearn took a first-pitch, 90 MPH slider to deep right field and it was initially called a grand slam before it was overturned and called foul.

Fortunately for Diaz, he would manage to strike out O’Hearn and then get Meibrys Viloria to ground into a double play.

So, while no runs were charged to Diaz, this was a very poor outing for the right-hander and honestly, this should’ve been expected on Callaway’s part.

Diaz’s biggest issue this season has been his abysmal control which has seen him allow a career-high 11 home runs. He also has now walked a batter in four consecutive appearances and six in his last seven outings while also hitting two batters in that span.

The closer also has a 1-6 record, 5.44 ERA, 4.49 FIP, and 1.489 WHIP with 14.6 K/9 as compared to 3.7 BB/9. As can be seen in the previous paragraph, his walk rate is somewhat deceiving. He has also tied a career-high in blown saves with five on the year as compared to 25 saves.

With the bases loaded in the eighth, how does it make sense to bring in you’re struggling closer who can’t find the plate, and when he does, it’s a fat pitch ready to be crushed?

It simply doesn’t. Sure, had it worked out surprisingly well, could it have given Diaz some much-needed confidence?

Absolutely, but when you bring someone in with the bases loaded and nobody out, chances are they are going to at least allow one of the inherited runners to score.

I even understand the rationale Callaway gave right after the game about the issue, saying that he wanted to bring in someone who could get “a big strikeout.”

However, given Diaz is so valuable to the team long-term, partially due to the talent they traded in the offseason to acquire him, was bringing him in while his confidence is probably at an all-time low really a smart move in that situation?

Now, because of that, Diaz is possibly unavailable on Saturday after pitching each of the last two days, both games he shouldn’t have had to appear in.

It’s become clear that Seth Lugo is the pitcher they trust the most in the bullpen and with extremely smart reasoning, but Diaz still is under control for the next three years after this one and he is still a player that needs to be handled smartly for the sake of his future with the club.