Well, it’s getting to be that time of year for the Mets, the time of the summer when luck no longer cuts it, when the days are getting shorter and the shadows of another lost season become longer.
They’re supposed to be selling hope in Queens, and most certainly so with Zack Wheeler pitching, but the Mets yesterday were hopeless even with the 23-year-old prodigy on the mound in a 6-2 defeat that represented the club’s seventh loss in the last 10 games.
It was an amateurish display that featured two errors on balls hit in the air, a third fly that was ruled a double but could have been an error, two wild pitches and a passed ball.
The old-time baseball instruction is to take two and hit to right. The Royals didn’t bother taking two. They simply hit the ball up in the air and into a high, bright sun to right field, where both Marlon Byrd and second baseman Daniel Murphy were blinded by the light and thus botched three plays from the second through sixth innings.
It was sunny when the visitors from Kansas City were in the field, too, but Mets manager Terry Collins said: “We unfortunately couldn’t hit the ball that high to get their right fielder involved.”
Seriously, he said that.
Collins wanted yesterday to serve as a lesson for Wheeler, who didn’t necessarily fall apart when balls hit high in the air started dropping to the ground behind him, but couldn’t muster the stuff to take matters into his own hands.
The manager spoke to Wheeler in the dugout after the fifth inning, during which the Royals scored three runs in taking advantage of a six-batter stretch that included both wild pitches, the passed ball, one of the two errors and another that eluded Byrd for a double.
The message to the rookie was: “Even though it’s not [your] fault, this is where the pitcher can step up and put an end to this,” Collins related.
“Go out and dominate like I know [you] can.
“This is where you can really earn the respect of your teammates,” the manager said. “I’m not saying he didn’t give the effort, but this was a time for Zack to come off the mound for 10 seconds, collect himself, and say, “This is my mound.’ ”
In his ninth major league start since his June 18 debut in Atlanta, Wheeler was not quite master of his domain. After getting ahead 0-1 to four of the first five hitters he faced, the right-hander threw first-pitch strikes to just five of the next 19 Royals.
Thirty of Wheeler’s 45 pitches through three innings were strikes. After that, only half of his remaining 56 pitches were strikes. Nine of the last 13 men he faced reached base before his work came to an end after the fifth.
“About the fourth inning, something happened with my mechanics,” said Wheeler, who fell to 4-2 with the defeat in which he allowed four runs (three earned) on five hits. “I couldn’t figure it out.
“I was leaving some balls up. If I would have made quality pitches down in the zone, I would have gotten ground balls.
“It’s not [my teammates’] fault.”
Byrd, whose miserable day featured a bases-loaded strikeout to end the fifth with the Mets trailing 4-1, accepted the brunt of the blame for his misadventures in the field.
The veteran has resurrected his career this season, leading the club with 17 home runs and 60 RBIs with a more than respectable .279 average and .503 slugging percentage. General manager Sandy Alderson did not shop him at the deadline even though his contract will expire at the end of the season.
Byrd has been a bright spot. Yesterday, he could not see through the bright spot in the sky. So balls hit high in the air kept falling to earth.
Just as the Mets have.
With a thud.