Sandy Alderson promised changes were coming, but mimicking the Bad News Bears wasn’t one of them.
In the fifth inning of yesterday’s series finale at Citi Field against the Cubs, the Mets looked every bit like the lovable losers in the movie comedy.
On one play, two throwing errors and three overthrows gift-wrapped the Cubs two unearned runs and summarized, at the time at least, the Mets’ laughable play of late.
“It was just one of those crazy plays,” Terry Collins said after Kirk Nieuwenhuis’ walk-off, three-run homer changed the narrative, from another horrific loss to a feel-good, 4-3 victory. “What are you gonna say? Just we made two bad throws and it cost us two runs.”
“No,” he added later, cracking a grin, “I’ve never seen a play like that.”
With runners on first and second and two outs in the fifth inning, David Wright stabbed an Alfonso Soriano grounder in the hole with a headlong dive. He looked to second, then threw to first, high and wild over Daniel Murphy’s head. Murphy scrambled after the ball and threw home, well wide right of John Buck, not only enabling Starlin Castro to slide home safely but also allowing Nate Schierholtz to follow him across the plate.
“It kind of set things into a mad scramble, guys trying to make plays,” Wright said. “Everybody was trying to make a play to cut off that extra run.”
Not to be outdone, Omar Quintanilla retrieved the ball near the Cubs’ dugout — Jeremy Hefner wasn’t backing up the plate — and threw home, wide again, though the shortstop wasn’t charged with an error because Soriano didn’t advance another base.
“That was a lot of stuff going on very quickly,” Hefner said. “I’ve never seen that before.”
The embarrassing play came on the heels of Jordany Valdespin — the lone member of the infield not to take part in the shenanigans — overthrowing Jon Niese on a simple toss to the mound after a hit to the outfield on Saturday.
zbraziller@nypost.com