>
As much as the Mets left too many runners in scoring position (again) and especially leaving the bases loaded in the 9th, the loss yesterday was just another case of Mets luck. You know good luck, bad luck and the dreaded Mets luck.
I actually felt sorry for Terry Collins yesterday. Most games I get quite agitated when Collins goes all Tony LaRussa/Sparky Anderson and tries to match reliever for hitter in the late innings of close games. I always imagine hearing Gary Cohen announce “This call to the Mets bullpen is sponsored by Acme Warehouse, the official warehouse of Wily E. Coyotte and Terry Collins”, because when Collins goes into his super manger genius mode, it usually blows up for the Mets. But yesterday it nearly worked, in fact it should have worked.
Jon Niese was fantastic especially in the 7th inning when he was running on fumes; he found a way to get out of a jam after a lead off walk and a single put him in a dangerous hole. He reached back and found a little “sumthin’ sumthin’” to strikeout Paul Janish and Jordan Schafer to finish his afternoon on an high note.
Tied at 1 after nine innings, the tenth inning was one of those innings we’ve seen too many time with this Mets team. Scott Atchison got two quick outs then he surrendered a little bullshit single to Andrelton Simmons, that was all for Atchison as Collins called for Scott Rice to face the left-handed hitting Freddie Freeman. As we all know the inning should have been over at this at bat but unfortunately it continued. After an argument that for some reason didn’t get Collins thrown out of the game, Collins made another pitching change, his third in the inning, as he called for the freshly recalled Greg Burke to face the leading hitter in the NL Chris Johnson.
At this point I was getting quite perturbed as I felt Collins was over managing again being that Burke was the 5th reliever used leaving just Pedro Feliciano and Friday nights starting pitcher Carlos Torres left in the pen. Then I thought back to Jerry Layne‘s bad call (I was standing on the first base line on the Field Level for the last three innings of the game it has a great view of the field plus there are TV’s over hanging which give you a much better replay than the big video board whose only function it seems is for kiss cam and watching little kids hit wiffleballs) being the reason that Collins had to make the move from Rice to Burke.
It was obvious after the Johnson home run that Collins felt the same way. By the way, it’s tough to kill Burke for giving up the 3 run, kick in the balls, home run to Johnson. As you can see here on the Pitch F/X the ball was wayyyyy out of the strike zone. Mets luck strikes again.
I digress, as soon as the ball soared over the left field wall, Collins stormed out of the dugout to go after Jerry Layne again and for some strange reason Collins wasn’t thrown out of the game until a couple of minutes into his second tirade when he threw his hat to the ground at Layne’s feet. I find it hard to believe that Collins didn’t drop one F-bomb in the two confrontations with Layne over the call but a toss of the hat was offensive enough to get bounced.
Anyway just another day of Mets luck, YUCK!
