The New York Mets embarrassing season continued Thursday at Citi Field in a 10-1 loss to the Washington Nationals. After yet another uninspired performance that showed the Mets are not anywhere near being competitive, Terry Collins had finally had enough.
"It’s pretty simple. You go through stretches and this is one of them, but perception is reality in our game and the perception I have is that we folded it up," the manager said in a testy post-game press conference.
This team has been checked out for most of the season, but it's never been as bad as it has been the last week. Mental and physical errors once again littered the field with third baseman David Wright continuing to lead the way, the only way he has ever led this team.
Wright was 1-4 against the lowly Nationals pitching while seeing just 11 pitches in four plate appearances. He was 0-2 with runners in scoring position, including a pop-up with the bases loaded and two outs in the seventh inning with the Mets down just two runs. Wright also continued his terrible play at third base by committing his 18th error.
As seems to be a trend of theirs, New York's ineptitude allowed a rookie to look like an ace as Nationals pitcher Tom Milone earned his first career win. Milone allowed just the one run on three hits in 5 2/3 innings.
Rookie Chris Schwinden was one of the few Mets to look like a big leaguer, limiting Washington to just one earned run over five innings while tossing just 79 pitches.
The Mets bullpen let the game get out of hand in the eighth and ninth innings when the Nationals scored seven of their 10 runs.
The four-game sweep by the Nationals is just the second they have completed since moving to Washington in 2005 and first time sweeping any road series this season.
Luckily there aren't many fans showing up to the games at Citi Field to see this terrible level of play, but Collins knows that the few that do see it have every right to be up in arms.
"Our fans should be upset. I don’t blame them one bit," he said
New York will return to action Friday when the Atlanta Braves will gladly welcome the Mets to Turner Field for a three-game set.
Though it's hard to believe and even harder to tell if he was trying to convince himself, the Mets fans or his players, Collins says the team will be better the last two weeks of the season.
"We’re not done."