ST. LOUIS — Ike Davis’ torment continues.
“Today was an awful day,” the first baseman said yesterday after going 0-for-5 with four strikeouts in the Mets’ 5-2 victory over the Cardinals.
It’s been an equally miserable season for Davis, who is stuck in an 0-for-22 slump and saw his batting average drop to .157 with four homers and nine RBIs.
Davis has 45 strikeouts in 127 at-bats but was happy with the contact he had been making in the series — until yesterday.
“As far as this trip — besides today — it’s probably the best I’ve hit the ball, but I just didn’t get any hits,” Davis said. “Obviously it’s not good to strike out four times in any game, so definitely a bad day today.”
Manager Terry Collins said Davis’ biggest problem is handling off-speed pitches.
“And they’re giving him a steady diet of it,” Collins said. “So I told him, you have to keep working at it and we’ll get into the weekend and going to a place [Wrigley Field] where we’re going to need you to hit. If the weather is good, we need to get him going.”
* Collins doesn’t expect the Sports Illustrated cover jinx to be a factor for Matt Harvey today against the Cubs.
“I talked to Matt [on Wednesday], and you wouldn’t even know he’s on the cover of Sports Illustrated,” Collins said. “He acted as if there wasn’t even a magazine. He’s a special guy, just one of those guys who has a great makeup that is not going to let anything bother him. He’s not going to let that stand in the way of going out and dominating somebody.”
* Bobby Parnell pitched a scoreless ninth to earn his fourth save in six opportunities this season. His last save had come on May 1 at Miami. The right-hander has not allowed a run in six appearances this month.
* MLB and the Mets have launched a city-wide ticket hunt to celebrate All-Star week events. The hunt will begin tomorrow at 10 a.m. when a series of clues will be released through the All-Star Game Twitter account @AllStarGame and the Mets account @Mets. Each clue will lead fans to five locations throughout Manhattan.
The first eligible fan to show up at each location and provide uniformed MLB representatives with the correct password — which will be released on Twitter — wins a prize package that includes four tickets to one day of the T-Mobile All-Star Fanfest and an autographed David Wright baseball.
The All-Star Game will be played July 16 at Citi Field.