PORT ST. LUCIE — Mount St. Collins was due for an eruption.
The Mets can drive you crazy, especially when you are the manager, trying to right the many wrongs that plague this team. Collins is trying to turn the Mets into winners, and he can’t even get them all on the field, with shortstop Ruben Tejada coming up with a groin injury during a drill yesterday before the Mets were pounded by the Cardinals, 7-1, at Digital Domain Park.
You really have to question what the Mets are doing as an organization — and players are doing in the off-season with their own workout programs — when so many of these injuries hit.
Spring training is the time to get prepared for the season. You can’t get ready as a team when players come up hurt nearly every day. The Mets are trying to break in a new middle infield with Tejada at shortstop and Daniel Murphy getting on-the-job training at second base.
And now, Tejada has sustained another Amazin’ Mets injury.
Collins was hired to bring fire to the Mets. He was hired to win. He cares deeply about his team. He cares so much, that frustrations of the job can cause an explosion every now and then, a little TC-insanity.
Asked about Tejada’s injury before the game the manager replied: “Shocker! It’s not serious, it doesn’t have to be, not here, you need an aspirin, you’re off for a day.’’
When Collins was asked how difficult it is to get the team going in the right direction in a spring training filled with so many different injuries, he replied, “We’ve got three weeks from Wednesday, we’ve got a lot of time, I’m just getting tired of going into the training room where I’ve got to sweat to see who can walk out of there, that’s all.’’
At least he didn’t drop his plate of tuna fish.
Collins should be tired of it. He said he was not upset with Tejada, but Tejada started the spring in the doghouse for not being here when Collins wanted him here. Given the magnitude of the job ahead, replacing Jose Reyes, Collins wanted to make sure Tejada got the work needed with Murphy, especially on the double play. This is going to take time.
All this comes on the heels of David Wright’s rib cage injury that not only has kept him out of spring training games, but has kept him out of camp the last two days, because Wright had to go back to New York to get a cortisone shot.
Don’t forget that first baseman Ike Davis has valley fever, a situation that seems to be under control. But in the Mets’ world, anything can happen.
Collins is dealing with an injured shortstop, an injured third baseman, a second baseman trying to learn on the job, a first baseman that has a potentially scary ailment, and there are a slew of other injuries on the team, not to mention seeing Mike Pelfrey serve up two home runs in the first two innings yesterday.
If not for Johan Santana doing well on his comeback from shoulder surgery, this camp would be a total disaster right now.
After the game a calmer Collins said of the injuries, “This throws off the whole scheme of what you had set up for spring training. I take a lot of pride in the scheduling side. Now we have to back guys off.
“We have to get out of the gate, that’s huge for us. If we don’t have the at-bats or the innings played or the execution-side down right, we’re not going to get out of the gate, that’s where it gets frustrating. We aren’t going to compete if we don’t have our players on the field, so we have to get them ready.’’
Collins has three weeks to get the Mets ready. At this pace of injuries, he is going to run out of Mets. He’s already run out of patience.