There is a Bud Harrelson-sized BUY button on the desk of Mets general manager Sandy Alderson, and there is a Sid Fernandez-sized SELL button. And days like yesterday — Angels 7, Mets 3 — only silence the romantics who cannot let go of this crazy wild-card dream in Flushing.
Terry Collins’ Little Engine That Could couldn’t yesterday. Couldn’t pitch and couldn’t hit and couldn’t win another series at Citi Field and couldn’t climb back to .500. There are only 41 days left between now and the trade deadline, and after this upcoming three-game series with the A’s, three games with the Yankees are sandwiched between a six-game road trip and a seven-game West Coast trip.
And so here comes the moment of truth for these Mets. When Alderson no longer will be able to resist the urge to press SELL. When the music will stop and the BUY-SELL cha-cha the Mets have been dancing will end. When, given the dire financial straits of the Wilponzi franchise, it will be foolish for Carlos Beltran not to go, foolish for K-Rod not to go, foolish for Jose Reyes to accept an offer from Alderson he absolutely can refuse.
But the manager deserves this one last chance to defy the odds, to extinguish the growing inevitability of the much-anticipated fire sale.
“First of all, I don’t think that’s gonna happen, and I don’t like it,” Collins said. “That’s not my job. I don’t worry about that stuff. When you’re trying to win on a nightly basis, you don’t like to hear those kind of words as everybody’s talking about — ‘Hey, your club’s gonna get broken up’ — and we just gotta hang in there.”
The only reason there is even a debate over whether there will be a fire sale is because of Collins. Jose Reyes aside, Collins has been the biggest star for the Mets, who are 4½ games behind the Braves for second place in the NL East and shouldn’t be anywhere that close.
“Hey, look, whatever happens, happens,” Collins said. “I can’t get caught up in stuff I can’t control. And I ask my players to do that every single day. I have to follow suit.”
Jonathon Niese, too fastball-happy, came back down to earth yesterday. Collins pinch-hit right-handed Scott Hairston for his cleanup hitter — left-handed Daniel Murphy! — against southpaw Scott Downs with two outs in the ninth, and Hairston hit a grounder to short. Rehabbing David Wright was talking in the clubhouse about beginning to take groundballs on his knees. And Ike Davis and Johan Santana remained nowhere in sight.
“You saw the 27th out of tonight’s game was a guy who busted his butt down the first-base line on a groundball to shortstop,” Collins said.
You bet he is in the NL Manager of the Year conversation. I asked Collins what he thinks has been the secret of his success so far.
“I don’t let up on ’em,” Collins said. “I don’t let ’em fall up in that rut. I don’t let ’em get caught up in that negative stuff.”
It is a monumental task.
“I think everyone in here is completely aware of the situation that we are in and the team is in,” Jason Bay said. “If it trickles into here, that’s when you start to have a problem.”
Bay was asked if he thinks the team has enough, without Wright and Davis, to make a wild-card run.
“Without David and without Ike, probably not,” Bay said. “If we get those guys back at some point, it makes a difference. But if you look at the teams that you’re trying to chase, it would be very, very tough.”
The manager would try to beat your brains in with the ’62 Mets. He deserves every last chance with the horses he has. And doesn’t have.
