Awfully early to be lifeless already

Written By Unknown on Jumat, 04 April 2014 | 18.18

Hopefully, Mets management was watching closely the first three games of the season and was not engaged in a deep analytical study of the wisdom of not swinging at marginal strikes early in the count.

It took just three games to see the difference between an elite team, one that will win 90 games, and another team that is wishing and hoping its world will become a better baseball place.

Once again Mets bats could not make solid contact, the bullpen was atrocious, and the defense was dreadful as the Mets were swept away by the Nationals, 8-2, Thursday at Citi Field before an announced crowd of 20,561, but was more like 6,000.

Two scouts who watched the Mets take batting practice said they had never seen a team so "lifeless'' after just two games of the season.

Then it got worse.

The 0-3 Mets never had been swept at home in a season-opening three-game series. Never.

Asked if there is a malaise around the team already, manager Terry Collins said, "I wouldn't say it is a concern at this moment, but it can grow into one, for sure.''

In three games the Mets struck out 39 times. If the Mets continue to whiff at this rate, they will shatter the record for strikeouts. The team mark was set last season when they struck out 1,384 times, the sixth most in MLB history.

Eight times the Mets have led the league in strikeouts, and the combined winning percentage of those eight teams is .421.

Yes, the new philosophy is that strikeouts are no big deal, and trading strikeouts for home runs is fine, but at some point a team has to make contact, get a few hits the other way and create runs.

"One of the things we are not doing is we're not getting the base hit to drive in one,'' Collins said. "If you look at how [the Nationals] scored today, you've got [Jayson] Werth and [Ryan] Zimmerman, big power hitters, getting base hits to right field, taking singles. That's what we've got to start doing.''

The Mets committed as many errors, two — both at second base by a rusty Daniel Murphy, who will be given a pass because he just became a new dad — as runs scored.

The Mets were out-hit 13-7 in this game and were out-hit 35-17 for the series. The Nationals have won eight straight against them, outscoring the Mets, 53-20 over that span.

This was a baseball slaughter in every way.

Owner Fred Wilpon and general manager Sandy Alderson wanted to change the culture with the challenge of 90 wins.

How about one win this week? How about one cleanly played game? How about a key hit to the opposite field?

On Opening Day, Alderson was extremely critical of the skepticism surrounding his team after five straight losing seasons.

How about being critical of way this team is being run? How about some accountability about the decisions made, like putting together a bullpen that can't get anyone out?

Call up the young arms in Las Vegas.

Right now the Mets are MLB's version of Whack 'em All.

Asked if he is hurting with the losses, Collins said, "Not yet. … It's just three games, you've got to forget about it and move ahead to the next series and start fresh. I can assure you we are better than what we've seen the last three days.''
Management wants to go with Lucas Duda at first base, so expect him to get a run at the position.

"Coming out of the bullpen we've got to start throwing strikes,'' Collins said.

"We're a lot better team defensively, we're a lot better team offensively than we're seeing right now,'' Collins insisted. "It's three days, and certainly it leaves a sour taste in your mouth when you start out the season like this, but I can tell you a few teams that ended up being pretty good that got off to slow starts.''

Keep wishing and dreaming, Mets.


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