There is one lesson the Mets still have not learned. They don’t understand how each close loss counts so heavily at the end of the season.
The Mets can turn a win into a wince.
They continue to let close games slip away, and come September the Mets will look back at the kind of loss they had yesterday as another opportunity lost. The 5-4, 10-inning defeat to the Reds at Great American Ball Park is the kind of loss that hurts twice as much.
The Mets are 4-7 on the road, with four of those losses being one run losses. They are 3-6 overall in one-run games.
These are the kinds of losses that turn a 90-win season into an 80-win season, or worse. Going back to their end-of-season collapses, the Mets never have understood the urgency each game demands.
It’s easy to point to Jason Bay for his lack of run production, but the Mets problems run much deeper. When you get a team on the ropes, you have to finish them off. That essentially is the difference between the Yankees and the Mets.
The Yankees take advantage of the opportunities; the Mets let them slip away. They always seem to be one big hit short. They never make life easy for themselves or their fans. And these kinds of losses are proof that they get in their own way all too often.
The Mets need to make some serious adjustments and it can start with the lineup. Manager Jerry Manuel needs to back off on his plan of keeping Jose Reyes in the third spot. Though it makes sense to have a switch-hitter there, you can just tell by Reyes’ approach that he does not understand the nuances of that spot.
And why should he? He’s a natural-born leadoff hitter. He’s about scoring runs, not knocking in runs.
Consider these Amazin’ numbers, courtesy of Elias Sports Bureau: The Mets have a .687 winning percentage (292-133) when Reyes plays and scores a run. They are 141-249 (.362) when he plays and does not score a run.
That’s his job. This season he has scored runs in 11 games, the Mets have won nine of those.
David Wright can slip back into the three spot. He blasted his seventh home run yesterday. Runs have been hard to come by for the Mets, and it’s not going to get any easier facing the Giants this weekend for three games.
There are different ways to measure a team’s offensive success, but a simple way is to look at RBIs. The Mets are 21st in the majors in that category with 108 RBIs.
Bay is a big part of that problem, but there actually is more pressure on Bay now with Reyes batting third, because Reyes is learning on the job and does not have the patience to take a walk when opponents are trying to pitch around him.
Bay was 0-for-12 in the series. He’s batting .238 and has just nine RBIs all season.
With the Mets, though, it’s never one reason for failure. It’s a combination of little things that cause problems.
Manuel also needs to stop using relievers for so many successive days. Pedro Feliciano gave up the walk-off home run to Orlando Cabrera yesterday. It was Feliciano’s fourth straight game. The night before in a win, Fernando Nieve surrendered two home runs in his third straight day of work.
If the Mets were able to put together a few big innings, there would not be such pressure on the bullpen. On the road, all this really comes into play.
After this six-game homestand the Mets will have played 22 of their first 33 games at Citi Field. Then 14 of the next 20 are on the road, their six home games are against the Yankees and Phillies. That is a tough stretch.
The Mets have played just four road series this year. They have lost them all.