Just Mets

The Mets lost to the Yankees 6-4 on Sunday night in the Bronx. Here are my takeaways from tonight’s game…

The Mets defense was a circus act.

I don’t even know what to say about the middle infield tonight. They had a chance to turn three double plays in the fifth inning, and turned only one of them, and it cost them a run. Wilmer Flores airmailed a throw on an easy 6-6-3 double play, and Daniel Murphy could not field a hard hit ball right to him for an easy 4-6-3 double play. Murphy’s miss led to Flores’ mistake in that if he makes that play, Flores’ bad throw never happens.

As for the other errors, Eric Campbell made a throwing error in the first, which didn’t cost them a run. But, Michael Cuddyer made a poor throw to second after fielding a double in the second which did cost them a run.

I just don’t know what Murphy’s deal is at second right now. He’s been awful there, as I wrote earlier today. But it really kind of summed up the night the Mets had behind Jon Niese, and it was difficult to watch, to say the least.

Oh, the mental mistakes…

On top of the error Murphy committed, he also made another critical mental mistake in the sixth inning when he didn’t slide on a weak groundball to Stephen Drew in front of the second base bag. If he slides, he’s quite possibly safe, and the Mets instead have first and second and nobody out in an attempt to come from behind. Instead, he’s out, and there’s a runner at first and one out.

That runner at first was Campbell, who in the next sequence forgot the outs on a popup to right field off the bat of Flores. He was then out at first on an inexcusable double play. Again, I really don’t know what to say about that.

Jon Niese had one bad inning, but it was really bad.

He gave up four doubles and a single in the second inning, coughing up the two-run lead the Mets handed him seemingly in a blink of an eye. His cutter was flat and floating up and over the plate, and the Yankees did what the Yankees do to poorly executed pitches, and that is hit the hell out of them.

He allowed four runs in the second inning and the Mets couldn’t rebound from that.    It was nice he was able to get through five innings and not leave Terry Collins scrambling with the bullpen with an overnight flight ahead of them, but it was really a poor night for Niese overall, as he simply couldn’t stop the bleeding in the second inning.

A very disappointing loss.

They beat themselves tonight, and that’s the most frustrating part of the loss. They played poorly on defense, made mental mistakes, and let the Yankees embarrass them in a spotlight series. They had played so well in general through the first 18 games of the year, but these kinds of losses are the ones which really eat at me. I don’t mind a good butt whooping every now and again, but these kinds of games really aren’t that competitive, and they really got what they deserved tonight…

Other notes from Sunday:

The Mets lost their first series since their series in Atlanta from April 10-12.

Despite the mistakes, Murphy still went 2-for-2 with a double and two RBI on the night.

Flores went 0-for-3 on Sunday night, ending his eight-game hitting streak.