Now?
What are we doing?
What are we doing? Come on.
This would be an amateur lip-reading summary of what Taijuan Walker told Luis Rojas after the Mets pitcher raised his hands in the seventh inning as his manager headed for the mound. The Mets maintained a 2-1 lead over the Giants. Walker had thrown only 74 pitches, he was absolutely rolling and the two giants who had just reached the base had done so with badly copied balls that should have been thrown successfully.
But Rojas wanted his brilliant left-hander Aaron Loup to face left-hander Brandon Crawford because he considered it to be the Mets ’best available game. The manager followed the book and ignored the game’s (and Walker’s) beats. Loup had allowed a hit in his last dozen appearances, and hadn’t allowed an extra-base hit on a left-hander all season. On the first throw from Loup, a cutter, Crawford changed all that with a two-run double that became the winner of the game, and an angry Walker turned around and threw a bottle of water at the excavator.
The initiator, who looked like an incredulous Mets fan before coming out of the mound, now acted like an incredulous Mets fan with his night of two ruined hits. People in the crowd started singing, “Fire Rojas,” and a free fall (even by Mets standards) was getting a little uglier.
Yes, the Giants tried to return that gift to the home team in the ninth, when two outside players collided with Brandon Drury’s ball. No, the home team was not interested in receiving him. Francisco Lindor took the spot again just before his injury and made Jake McGee’s first pitch appear and won the boos from the crowd. Then, with the bases loaded and two out, Pete Alonso, home champions, offered nothing more than a start at second base, sealing the Mets ’tenth loss in their 12 games against the Giants and Dodgers.
This return to Citi Field was supposed to revive any chance the Mets had of recharging that east hill of NL. Instead, Loup said, his team “was basically a little off the field.”
Rojas took the weight off Queens and all the social media. It was all the rage on Twitter, it was never good for a coach who took a four-game lead in the division on August 1 and now has a seven-game deficit on August 26. Michael Conforto, doubling down on the line units, watched as Loup fit in on his first pitch and then heard some fans asking for his work.
“They can say whatever it is,” Rojas said. “We have a very passionate fan base.”
At the end of the beating practice on Wednesday, the manager had spoken to a field reporter about the evil he wants to permanently establish a winning culture and erase media references and fans of the same Old Mets mentality. Rojas will not turn 40 until next week and has the chance to be a very good long-term manager. But if he wants that future to be in New York, losing and bad baseball has to stop much sooner rather than later. And days like Wednesday, which began with Jacob deGrom’s encouraging sights and sounds playing catch on the field and then endowing himself with his former college position, the shortstop, during batting practice, can’t continue to end with so much negative energy exploding around the building.
The Mets won 45-37, with a four-game lead in NL East, after deGrom threw the most recent, on July 7th. behind the top-ranked Atlanta.
After Rojas announced what he called “great news for us” (an MRI scan that showed enough improvement in deGrom’s elbow inflammation to allow him to throw a baseball), he was asked about the damage the absence of his ace caused to his team, not only in a physical context, but also a psychological one.
“We’ve faced a lot of things this season and the guys have taken it in the best way,” Rojas said. “They show up to play every day with the same behavior. … I don’t think the boys felt sorry for themselves. … I don’t think from a mental standpoint [deGrom’s absence] hurt the boys. They showed up to play the same way every day. ”
It’s not even half as effective.
Rojas has to protect his players, and he can’t give them any reason to fail in a press conference response. But with Grom’s return potentially on the horizon, his Mets remain a sinking team. They have 14 games against the Nationals and the Marlins and have to win 10 or 11 of them.
Rojas pressed all the right buttons for three months, keeping his team in first place. You need to rediscover these buttons as soon as possible.