Somewhere, surely a university exists that would showcase the Mets’ mastery of a skill set you normally don’t find in the business world.
Come on, what savvy corporation wouldn’t sign up for Customer Pain Infliction?
Holy Tejada, did the Mets put on a clinic Friday at Citi Field. Call it a Pain Potpourri, culminating in a dreadful, 11-inning, 3-2 loss to the equally dreadful Phillies, the Mets’ fourth straight loss and seventh in eight games since — as The Post’s Mike Vaccaro pointed out — they sent out that ridiculous “Loyalty Oath.” Returning here to the land of supposed True New Yorkers didn’t break the curse.
At 16-18, the Mets now share last place in the National League East with these Phillies. Saturday night’s matchup determines sole occupancy.
Mets fans, emotionally battered over the last five-plus years, are accustomed to tough days. But this mined new lows.
Or as manager Terry Collins put it after this four-hour, 39-minure atrocity, when asked about the performance of his starting pitcher Jenrry Mejia: “Right now, we’ve got to figure out how to score.”
Fifteen Mets left on base, and 1-for-11 with runners in scoring position. Faced with multiple circumstances in which even an out would have brought home a runner — with the Phillies playing their infield back and conceding the run — the Mets couldn’t come through.
This would have been a visitors’ blowout if the Phillies hadn’t been so feeble in their own right, leaving an astounding 17 men on base and going 3-for-12 with runners in scoring position.
“Obviously, it’s a concern,” said David Wright, whose eighth-inning double drove home Daniel Murphy from first base and tied the score at 2-2. “It would be more of a concern if we weren’t getting guys on base.”
This is not complete spin by the captain. Three of the Mets’ last four losses have come by one run, and eventually, those close games turn around. Unfortunately for the Mets, sometimes it takes a full season for that luck to turn.
And this season remains critical for the Mets, who face an immense trust deficit with their fans. Their latest move, the promotion of Wilmer Flores to play shortstop every day, underlines both the team’s desire to improve quickly this season as well as suspect commitment to that improvement, as shortstop Stephen Drew remains an unsigned free agent with the Mets’ payroll lurking in the $85 million neighborhood.
“We decided, we thought it’s time to see if he can help us offensively,” Collins said of Flores prior to the game. Flores went 2-for-5 on Friday, although he struck out in his biggest at-bat, with Mets on second and third in the fifth inning.
At hitter-friendly, Triple-A Las Vegas, Flores put up a .307/.360/.500 slash line in 126 plate appearances, and he committed seven errors in 25 games at shortstop. Up with the Mets, Tejada has slashed .181/.299/.205, and just to rub some salt in the wound, he has registered negatively on the advanced defensive measures.
Tejada, the only Mets player to get booed on 2014 Opening Day, displayed virtually no semblance of the prospect who put up a .360 on-base percentage and fielded capably all the way back in 2011 — giving the Mets hope that he could be Jose Reyes Lite for a fraction of the price.
Similarly, the Mets, having whiffed last winter on procuring Jhonny Peralta and not particularly excited about Drew, bet heavily on Tejada at the outset of the season, gambling that he could approach Drew’s value at, again, a fraction of the price. That bet now is officially a loser.
The Mets acknowledged a big-picture loss, and then they suffered an actual loss that took forever. Citi Field once again felt like a house of pain. Will that negativity ever alleviate? On nights like this, you wonder.