Instead, Ender Inciarte raced back to the wall in right-center field, leapt and made losers of the Mets, 4-3, in a game that New York had led by three runs and had let slip away.
“I knew I hit the ball well,” Cespedes said through an interpreter. “I knew there was a good chance it was going to make it out, but he made a better play.”
Tough luck, and that’s baseball, nothing you can really do about it. What the Mets could have done something about was the way that they got to that spot, because there was no way that the game should have played out the way that it did.
MORE: Worst September collapses, ranked
Terry Collins is a very good manager. He handles the Mets’ clubhouse well, keeping belief alive at even the darkest times. With all the injuries New York has had, and the fact the Mets were two games under .500 in late August, it’s a testament to Collins that they are where they are, battling right to the end with the Cardinals and Giants. Collins’ weakness is in-game personnel moves, and he got burned on that in a huge way Wednesday.
Often, you can get away with wrong moves in baseball because pitchers’ advantage over hitters is baked into the game. The 2013 Red Sox were evidence of this, as John Farrell made questionable move after questionable move but got away with it against the Cardinals in the World Series. Collins did not get away with it in last year’s World Series, and he did not get away with it on Wednesday night as the bad decisions piled up on themselves.
- Brought in Addison Reed to relieve Bartolo Colon
On the face of it, there was nothing wrong with this. It was the seventh inning and the 43-year-old Colon had given up a single to Dansby Swanson on his 91st pitch of the night. With a 3-0 lead cut to 3-2 after Anthony Recker’s two-run homer earlier in the inning, you could defend going to Reed, the Mets’ best setup man, to get out of further trouble.
FAGAN: Hindsight special: Ranking deadline moves
The problem was that the Braves had sent up Blake Lalli, a 33-year-old journeyman who posted a feeble .628 OPS in Triple-A this year. It was hardly necessary to summon Reed to deal with this non-threat, and while you wouldn’t want to bring in a lefty lest the Braves pinch-hit a right-handed batter, if there’s not another reliever in the bullpen who can handle Blake Lalli, you might as well give up.
So, Reed struck out Lalli, but that set him up to work the eighth inning already having thrown a few pitches in a high-leverage situation, and that is suboptimal.
- Took out Reed
The eighth inning began with Inciarte reaching on an error by first baseman James Loney. Reed then got Adonis Garcia to fly out to right field, bringing the dangerous Freddie Freeman to the plate. Collins went to southpaw Josh Smoker, who threw one pitch — Freeman dunked the 93 mph fastball into center field for a single.
Addison Reed (Getty Images)
“Bringing Addie in the seventh inning, as much as I’ve used him lately, I said, ‘You know what? I can’t let Freddie’ — Freddie, they don’t have a lot of matchups, but he’s 2 for 4 and this guy’s too hot,” Collins said, raising further question as to why he brought in Reed when he did. “I had a thought, if he’s gonna get a hit, face a power lefty. He got the s— jammed out of him, blooped it in.”
There’s no really good option for dealing with Freeman, but here’s where the bad decisions piggyback on each other. Because Reed was out of the game, Collins now was left in a situation where he could not have his top setup man face Matt Kemp with one out and two runners on base in the eighth inning. That meant Collins had to . . .
- Ask Jeurys Familia to record a five-out save
Familia is one of the game’s elite closers, leading the majors with 49 saves while pitching to a 2.50 ERA and striking out 76 batters in 72 innings this year.
“I had it in mind when we started the inning,” Collins said. “I told Dan (Warthen, the pitching coach), if Kemp gets up, it’s going to be Familia. So, that was the way it was.”
MORE: Updated MLB standings
This is mind-boggling because it basically compromised Familia for Thursday’s game, as the closer threw 30 pitches. But, hey, you manage for today and worry about tomorrow later. Fine. But here’s a problem: runners were 6 for 6 stealing bases against Familia coming into Wednesday. After a double steal by Inciarte and Freeman, that figure is 8 for 8. Nobody, for the record, has stolen a base against Reed all season, but of course he was gone at this point.
Kemp has been really good for the Braves since they acquired him, but he’s a long way removed from finishing second in the 2011 NL MVP vote. His presence at the plate should not be a case of high alert, time to bring in the closer for a five-out save.
This was not what cost the Mets this game, but Kemp came through with a sacrifice fly to tie the game. Familia intentionally walked Nick Markakis, then got out of the inning when Recker hit back to the box.
- Burned Kelly Johnson for no good reason
With runners on second and third and two out in the bottom of the eighth inning — a gift, really, because Kemp should have caught the ball that turned into a double for Cespedes — Collins called on Johnson to pinch-hit for Matt Reynolds, a move that made total sense. This is precisely the situation for which the Mets acquired Johnson from the Braves back in June, and Johnson has blasted four homers as a pinch hitter since returning to New York.
MORE: Ron Darling says World Series Game 6 wasn’t best Game 6 of ‘86
Playing by the book, Braves interim manager Brian Snitker played right into the Mets’ hands by bringing in left-hander Ian Krol to replace Chaz Roe. This was a favor to the Mets, as the left-handed hitting Johnson has better career numbers against lefties than righties and Krol this season had allowed lefty batters an OPS 44 points higher.
Collins said the hell with that, and sent up right-handed hitter Eric Campbell to pinch-hit for Johnson. The Braves countered by intentionally walking a .172 hitter. The game was afoot indeed.
- Used Kevin Plawecki when other baseball players were available
“That same guy (Krol), we got two hits against him last night with the same two guys we ran out there,” Collins said of Campbell and Plawecki, a statement that was not true, as Plawecki had reached on an error against Krol on Tuesday night. “So, they had seen him more than Kelly had. Kelly had never faced him. So, I went with the guys that had seen him and hit him last night.”
Even if Collins had been accurate, and Plawecki had gotten a hit against Krol, it’s silly to expect that hits on Tuesday would mean an advantage on Wednesday for replacement-level hitters like Campbell and Plawecki.
MORE: Tim Tebow has ’the sound’ off his bat, Gary Sheffield says
Travis d’Arnaud, struggling but a regular major leaguer, was available. So was Jay Bruce, whose 1-for-4 in his career against Krol is meaningless, but if we’re using the small-sample logic that Collins applied to Plawecki, is not. Lucas Duda is 1 for 2 in his career against Krol. Gavin Cecchini hasn’t faced Krol, but is right-handed, and generally a better hitter.
Or, you know, just leave in Loney. He has hit .180/.226/.280 against lefties this season, but then, Plawecki’s full-season numbers are .189/.295/.252. At least, they were before he got ahead on the count 2-0, inexplicably swung at the next pitch to get Krol back in the at-bat, and struck out to end the inning. Loney, while bad against left-handers, is what’s known as a professional hitter, meaning that he’s smart enough to know when to take a pitch.
Also…
“James Loney’s as good a defensive first baseman as there is,” Collins said.
Yoenis Cespedes, Freddie Freeman react to Ender Inciarte’s game-ending catch. (Getty Images)
That would come into play in the top of the ninth inning, after Jace Peterson’s leadoff single. Swanson bunted toward first base, and Campbell, not wanting to gamble on trying to get Peterson at second, took a sure out at first. Peterson came around to score the decisive run on a single to left and a soft groundout.
The decision to use Plawecki also looked bad in the bottom of the ninth, when, with Brandon Nimmo on first base representing the tying run, d’Arnaud drew a walk to get the winning run on base. Because Nimmo had pinch-hit for Rene Rivera and Plawecki had already been used, d’Arnaud was the only Mets catcher left in the game, and Collins could not pinch-run for him. That wound up not mattering because of Inciarte’s catch, which stopped the Mets from winning a game they had no business winning — a game they also had no business losing until their manager’s many missteps.
