Then he went through the clubhouse and did it again, going from player to player with what appeared to be strictly positive reinforcement amid a theme of pressing ahead. After the better part of a month in which the positive has been overwhelmed by the negative, it was not an easy chore for Collins.
“I’m going to go into that clubhouse or the kitchen or wherever they’re hiding,” Collins said, “and tell them, ‘Go home and get some rest because we’ve got a battle on our hands tomorrow.’ ”
His team had just found new and more creative ways to lose a game, this one a 4-3 decision to the Houston Astros.
The Mets have the worst record in Major League Baseball at 5-13 and have surpassed the 1974 Mets for the third-worst start after 18 games in club history. Only the 1962 and ’64 Mets got off to worse starts, and those were 100-loss teams.
It was also the Mets’ eighth loss in nine games at home, the franchise’s worst nine-game start. Even the ’62 and ’64 teams won at least two of their first nine games, at the Polo Grounds in ’62 and Shea Stadium in ’64.
In the club’s 50th season, the 2011 Mets are doing their best impersonation of their 1962 forebears.
“It starts with me,” said R. A. Dickey, who generally pitched well but gave up three runs in the second inning and the decisive home run to Hunter Pence in the eighth. “We have to find a way to be honest with ourselves about what kind of team we are. We can’t keep telling ourselves, ‘Oh, we’re a better team than this.’ We may not be.
“We’ve got to be honest about that and identify what we’re doing wrong and do it better.”
Wednesday’s game was particularly exasperating, as Dickey labeled it, because of how it changed so suddenly from a mostly well-played contest with signs of hope into a near catastrophe.
Four consecutive Mets outs came on two plays in the eighth and ninth innings that set new standards for stunning losses this season.
After Daniel Murphy’s two-run homer in the sixth tied the score at 3-3, the Mets had the potential tying run 90 feet from home plate with one out in the eighth but failed to score, and in rather dramatic fashion.
Angel Pagan was at third after a single by Murphy, and pinch hitter Justin Turner, called up from the minor leagues the day before, was at the plate.
Turner struck out on a pitch that got away from Astros catcher J. R. Towles. Pagan broke for home, only to be tagged out by pitcher Jose Valdez, who took the throw from a scrambling Towles. The play was close, but Pagan’s lead foot was up in the air, not touching the plate.
Collins was not thrilled with the play but acknowledged that after weeks of losing, he could understand why Pagan tried to force the issue.
“We’ve been waiting for a two-out hit and it hasn’t happened,” Collins said. “It’s pretty hard to all of a sudden tell a guy ....
“I thought he got a good jump and they just made a good play. The catcher made a great play.”
In the ninth, Jose Reyes led off with a single, but Josh Thole popped his bunt attempt to pitcher Brandon Lyon, who fired to first to double off Reyes.
David Wright followed with a long fly ball to right, but it went to the farthest part of the park and was caught to end the game. He did the same thing to end the game April 13 against Colorado.
For Wright, who went 0 for 3 with two strikeouts and is hitless in his last 19 at-bats, it was especially frustrating because he hit the ball well.
Thole took full blame for the popped-up bunt. He was trying hard, as all the players are. But the Mets are starting to see that trying hard is not necessarily a formula for success.
“There’s no more trying to do well; we have to,” Thole said. “They can bring anybody here to try. Terry can go out and try, but you know what? This is our job.”
INSIDE PITCH
Reliever Bobby Parnell said doctors told him he might have a blood clot in the middle finger of his right hand but hope that it is not serious and that aspirin will solve the problem. Parnell said he would have an angiogram Thursday to determine the cause of the numbness in his finger. He is expected to be placed on the disabled list just as Jason Bay will be activated and make his 2011 debut in left field.
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