The Mystical Collapse of a Bullpen

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

For the Mets and their fans, the last two weeks have been less like a late season collapse and more like a mystical experience in which science and religion have converged and become one. Many baseball teams have lost a lead down the stretch, but few, if any, have become the center of a temporal dislocation in which the precise same thing happens at the precise same moment, every single day. Were a theologian and a quantum physicist inclined, they could no doubt plumb the mysteries of reason and faith simply by examining these two weeks minutely; those of us who do not contemplate the meaning of existence for a living can just stare on in horror.

The full blame for the disaster rests with the Mets’ bullpen, and with the men who run it. This doesn’t mean that the starting pitchers or position players have played perfectly, but they’ve given the bullpen lead after lead only to see them squandered. It takes more than the odd booted ball, vacuous base running play, or lousy start to sink a team as the Mets have been sunk. It takes the full force of a relief corps that has, from top to bottom, simply imploded.

Between the beginning of the series against the Phillies and the start of last night’s game, the Mets’ seven key relievers threw 41.1 innings, in which they gave up 30 earned runs for a 6.54 ERA. This is actually the kindest possible light in which to put their struggles, because this doesn’t count unearned runs (usually at least as much the fault of the pitcher as they are of the defense) or inherited runners who have been allowed to score. Nor does it account for the soul-deadening timing displayed by Mets relievers, who have managed to give up their runs just when they counted most.

Still, even putting things in the kindest possible light, the pen has been unimaginably bad. Astonishingly, these pitchers look every bit as bad on the stats sheet as they do on the hill. Billy Wagner’s ERA has been 6.75; Pedro Feliciano’s, 5.68; Scott Schoeneweis’s, 4.50; Joe Smith, 8.31; Jorge Sosa’s, 10.80; and Guillermo Mota’s, 7.50. Only Aaron Heilman looks good here, with a 2.25 mark, and even he blew a game by walking two men and hitting a batter.

I don’t believe that bad performance is generally contagious in baseball. It’s far too much of an individual sport, and unlike, say, basketball, it’s usually not even clear how the contagion would spread. In this case, though, it’s obvious that something has gone horribly wrong with all these pitchers at one time.

There are three likely causes here. The first is that the Mets’ bullpen just isn’t all that good. Wagner and Heilman are elite pitchers, but the rest of the Mets’ pen simply consists of marginally skilled relievers. The choices made by manager Willie Randolph — sending the execrable Mota in to face the heart of the Phillies’ lineup, for instance, or letting Florida’s Miguel Cabrera hit against soft-tossing lefties — haven’t helped at all, but he does have to send someone to the mound. The real culprit may just be lack of talent.

The second explanation is that when everyone is collapsing, it has tangible effects. Mets’ relievers have simply looked nervous on the hill lately — and who can blame them? When there’s a fresh goat every night, no one wants to wear the horns, and when you start thinking about failure, you’re more likely to fail. Heilman has been throwing harder than usual lately, and locating the ball far less well. That’s exactly the kind of muscling up that every pitcher knows isn’t a good idea, and he hasn’t been alone in doing it.

This brings us to the third explanation. Pitching coach Rick Peterson has received hardly any blame at all for this collapse, but he really should. Pitcher performance is ultimately his responsibility, in bad times as in good, and the Mets haven’t gotten the job done. More to the point, when pitchers are trying to blow the ball by hitters despite knowing that’s counterproductive, a coach whose forte is supposedly the mental aspect of the sport needs to come in for special blame. Peterson has been generally excellent since coming to New York, but if the Mets miss the playoffs, he’ll be the member of the team’s management most deserving of being fired.

It’s still early to talk about firings, though, no matter how dark things seem. The Mets’ fate is still in their hands, and there is simply no way for them to miss on at least forcing a playoff game with Philadelphia if they win the games they need to win. To do that, though, they’ll need to relax. It’s the easiest thing in the world for me to write, and the toughest thing for a professional ballplayer to do, but these relievers really do need to focus on making quality pitches. No pitcher can prevent his team from completing the greatest collapse in National League history; every pitcher good enough to make the major leagues can, if he concentrates, make one good pitch, and then do the same thing again, and again, and again. If Mota, Sosa, and company can do that this weekend, they’ll have a chance to start the season anew. If not, they’ll all wear the horns as one.

tmarchman@nysun.com


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