It was seven months too late, but Willie Randolph finally vented on his sloppy and sluggish team today.
Randolph was rightly criticized for saying little as the Mets melted down in historic fashion last September, but the manager couldn’t keep quiet after enduring an eyesore of a 9-7 loss to the Brewers.
“Too many opportunities wasted,” Randolph said with disgust after the Mets hit into five double plays. “Just a sloppy game, the kind of games we can’t have. It was one of those giveaway games, and we’ve got to be better than that.”
Granted, it wasn’t exactly Lou Piniella kicking over buffet tables or Ozzie Guillen peeling the paint off the clubhouse walls. And Randolph quickly backtracked after being pressed by reporters, saying the 11-game mark was far too early to panic or even hold a team meeting.
But the postgame display was a startling departure for the usually upbeat Randolph. Then again, he was only speaking the truth after watching the Mets fall below .500 with by far their ugliest effort in a young season already full of them.
As well as the five double plays (their most in a nine-inning game since 2002), the Mets blew a four-run lead, committed a rally-killing blunder on the basepaths, threw three wild pitches and left the bases loaded in the eighth while stranding 10 runners overall.
Other than that, it was a thing of beauty.
“Willie is angry and the clubhouse is angry,” said David Wright, who hit his 100th career homer in the first but left five men on base the rest of the way. “It’s frustrating. We know that, to compete in this division, we’re going to have to play better baseball.”
The Mets also need some quality starting pitching, but they certainly didn’t get it today from left-hander Oliver Perez.
Staked to a 6-2 lead after three innings, Perez crumbled while giving it all back in a disastrous fourth. He allowed four runs on four hits and a walk in the inning, then managed just one out in the fifth before leaving Jorge Sosa to give away the game for good.
“It was a bad day for me,” Perez said. “It wasn’t my day. I was all over the place, and it was one of those days when you don’t have anything. I didn’t do my job.”
Perez’s woes helped the Mets take an even shakier Jeff Suppan off the hook in a rematch of the starting pitchers from Game 7 of the 2006 NLCS. Suppan was rocked for nine hits and six earned runs in just four innings.
But as has been the case far too often already, the Mets couldn’t make their early good fortune stand up. They mustered just one more run against four Milwaukee relievers, hitting into double plays in four of the final five innings while their own pitching fell apart.
The most dispiriting double play came in the eighth, when pinch-hitter Brady Clark wrongly went on contact and was thrown out easily at the plate.
“When you score six or seven runs, you’ve got to win those games,” Carlos Beltran said. We’re just not getting the job done. Right now, things aren’t going our way.”
It would have helped if the Mets hadn’t almost singlehandedly rejuvenated Gabe Kapler’s career. Plucked out of retirement in the offseason, the Milwaukee center fielder went 3-for-4 with three RBIs thanks to two doubles and a first-inning homer.
It’s all looking hauntingly familiar to Mets fans who still haven’t forgotten last year’s epic collapse, even if the players don’t see any carry-over.
“Last year has absolutely nothing to do with it,” Wright insisted. “It has to do with our lack of execution. We’re not executing or putting teams away when we have the opportunity, and it’s coming back to bite us in the butt.”
Not to mention make their manager finally show a pulse.