Sunday night at Citi Field, the Mets and Matt Harvey held
the Yankees at bay for 5 innings, but after Harvey left the Yankees bats came
to life as they beat the Mets 11-2. The
Mets took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the 1st inning. Ruben Tejada
led off the game for the Mets with a double. David Wright followed with an RBI
single off C.C. Sabathia. Harvey was
dominant for 5 innings allowing just 1 hit, 1 walk and struck out 7. He left
after 5 due to innings restrictions. In the 6th Hansel Robles took
the mound and an error by Daniel Murphy set off a 5 run inning highlighted by a 2 run double by Carlos
Beltran and a 3 run homer by Dustin Ackley, for Ackley his 8th on
the year and it was 5-1 Yanks. In the 7th the Yanks loaded the bases
against Eric O’Flaherty. Erik Goeddel came in and walked Chase Headley bringing
home the 6th run. In the 8th the Yankees scored 5 more
times. Carlos Torres started the inning and allowed an RBI Single to Jacoby
Ellsbury. Tim Stauffer came on and yielded an RBI single to Brian McCann and
then a 3 run homer by Greg Bird to make it 11-1 Yankees. For Bird his 8th
homer on the year. The Mets scored their final run in the bottom of the 8th
on an RBI single by Murphy. Sabathia
went 6 innings allowing 5 hits the 1 run (earned) walking 3 and striking out 7.
He gets the win improving to 5-9. Robles
allowed 5 runs (1 earned) in 2/3 of an inning in the 6th and takes
the loss, falling to 4-3. With the loss
the Mets drop 2 of 3 to the Yanks in the series. Overall the Mets are 84-65 on
the year and 47-28 at home. The Nationals won on Sunday, so the Mets lead in
the NL East is now 6 games. Next up the
Atlanta Braves come to town for a 3 games set. Monday night Jonathon Niese
(8-10 4.31) goes for the Mets, Shelby Miller (5-15 3.00) goes for Atlanta.
I see the press has all pounced on the story being "Matt Harvey innings limit is hurting the Mets." I can understand why that's a fun story for the press to write, trying to re-whip up the storm around him and Boras..
ReplyDeleteBut to me, that wasn't the real story of yesterday's loss. The game I saw went down because of other more fundamental factors. Which is actually more worrying.
- poor fielding at crucial moments
- lack of timely hitting, inability to go for the jugular when the pitcher is struggling (in the 1st inning)
- lots of batters chasing pitches far out of the zone, which implies they're feeling pressure
During their stretch of winning baseball, these were the things the Mets were doing well. Fielding improved, clutch hitting was amazing. They looked secure and solid, like a winning ballclub.
Over the past week this has gone back to the way they looked before. Several games in a row now, they had a great position in the first inning to take a big lead and didn't. Yesterday several fielding errors cost Harvey one inning and then allowed the Yanks to score in the sixth. If they hadn't made these errors, Collins would have gone to his top relievers and this game would have been very different - whether they won or lost.
I'm not sounding the alarm, they have a huge lead and will probably make the playoffs, but hopefully they can snap out of this soon. This season the Mets have tended to do very well against the sub-.500 teams (and the Nationals) and pretty much lose against all the top teams. They probably will make the playoffs but to win games once they are there, they are going to have to step up these fundamentals.
Not sure what you do. Collins has been pretty good at rallying the troops so let's hope he can do it again. I'd like it if he became less obsessive with his lefty-righty matchups and concentrated on building the lineup according to the skills and mental strength of the batters. Maybe drill everyone in the basics of fielding and pitch selection. But really it's time for the players to step up and do this.