LOS ANGELES — Blame it on the hitters, not the manager. That’s the message Mets general manager Omar Minaya carried to Dodger Stadium last night.
I’m not buying it.
Humiliated in the desert, the Mets took their losing show to Hollywood.
This second half of the season there has seen no life in the team. Dead bats, dead Mets. But Minaya insisted that manager Jerry Manuel’s job is safe.
“Jerry is our manager. Look, any time you are going to have a couple of losing things, those things are going to pop up, but there is no discussion at all,” Minaya said in the dugout at Dodger Stadium before the Mets went out and put up a goose egg, losing 2-0 to the Dodgers to drop to 1-7 on this Road Trip to Oblivion.
“Jerry Manuel is our manager, will be our manager. I’m very happy with the job that he’s doing.”
How anyone with the Mets (49-47) can be “very happy” about anything is beyond me.
They are letting another season slip away. They rarely get hitters into scoring position, and when they do, they leave them stranded. On the trip they are 5-for-36 with runners in scoring position, one for the last 11. They’ve gone 17 straight innings without scoring a run.
The loss dropped them 7½ games back of the Braves. This was supposed to be the start to a second half in which they wanted to make their move.
And before the game, Manuel was joking with Minaya about a two-year extension.
Asked if there was a scenario in which Manuel might not finish out the year, Minaya said, “Jerry’s our manager. For me to discuss Jerry’s job status after a losing streak is just not right. Teams are going to have losing streaks. He’s our manager, and I see him being our manager.”
Manuel is the Mets manager — for now. Minaya wouldn’t guarantee that Manuel will be here the rest of the year. If the Mets don’t climb out of this hole, no job is safe.
As for the road trip, Minaya said, “We would like to win more games. All teams go through these phases. Hopefully we won’t stay in this phase of like we have the past couple of games. We’ve got to hit.”
Where’s the accountability?
The Mets say all their problems are related to lack of hitting. I say it’s much more than that. The most shocking thing on this trip is they are not playing with any fire. That usually leads to firings.
They have accepted losing. The Diamondbacks had not swept a three-game series since last August, yet they swept the Mets.
There is plenty of blame to go around. Minaya assembled these players. The Mets were 1-for-27 against the Diamondbacks bullpen in Wednesday night’s 4-3, 14-inning loss, a bullpen that is so bad that the Diamondbacks were trumpeting the fact that over the last 53 games before Wednesday, the bullpen had drastically improved, compiling a 5.75 ERA.
Minaya’s big offseason signing of Jason Bay has been a disaster. Bay struck out four times in the extra- inning loss as he went 0-for-6, dropping his average to .257. Manuel pointed to “anxiety” as being the root of Bay’s problems.
“I thought [that], getting out here on the West Coast . . . and take off,” Manuel said. “I’m really somewhat baffled at the struggles he is having.”
Bay was benched last night. He worked with hitting coach Howard Johnson before the game and both feel they came up with an answer to Bay’s problem. In fact, HoJo predicted Bay will come back in a huge way tonight.
“I think he’s close, we’re trying to unlock some pieces,” Johnson said. “I wouldn’t be surprised [tonight] if he hits a couple of home runs.”
The Mets collected only five hits as Hiroki Kuroda toyed with them. The constant refrain in the clubhouse is “We have to start hitting.”
That’s the wrong focus.
What the Mets have to do is start winning, win any way they can. It’s almost as if they expect to win by showing up, and that’s always been the problem with this team.
The Mets would be 0-8 on this sojourn if not for the bad call by plate umpire Phil Cuzzi that took a win away from the Giants.
But everything is OK. No worries, Mets. It’s all good.