THIS is the way life is on The Road to Mediocrity.
On a night when Pedro Martinez offered up seven gut-check innings and Mike Piazza hit a 430-foot bomb from the seventh spot in the batting order, the bullpen gave it all away.
The bullpen was the Mets’ Achilles heel in spring training and nothing has changed. That’s the way life is on The Road to Mediocrity.
Guarding a one-run lead in the eighth, Roberto Hernandez thought he could sneak a pitch past Brewers’ slugger Carlos Lee. Bad decision, Roberto.
Lee parked the pitch over the center-field fence. So much for not letting the opponent’s best hitter take you deep in that spot. It was the second straight night Hernandez surrendered a home run after allowing only one home run all season.
Funny things happen though in the second half of the season to arms in the bullpen.
The RBI was Lee’s 90th of the season. Derrek Lee is not the only Lee on his way to great things this season.
That blast tied the game, 4-4. Braden Looper then gave it all away in the ninth, surrendering two more runs as the Brewers went on to a 6-4 victory. The 40,000 fans in the house let Looper have it, and justifiably so.
The Mets were coming off a dramatic 9-8 victory on Tuesday night. They thought that win would give them the boost they needed to get back in the NL East race or the chance to make a wild-card run. With Atlanta losing to the Reds last night, it was a particularly painful defeat for Willie Randolph’s club.
The Mets’ inability to add quality arms to their bullpen has been a problem all year.
Of course, the Mets made it interesting in the ninth, getting runners on first and third with singles by Doug Mientkiewicz and Jose Reyes off Milwaukee closer Derrick Turnbow.
After a groundout by Miguel Cairo, Carlos Beltran, who had four excellent at-bats before this at-bat, was back to being his over-aggressive self and bounced out to first on the first pitch to end the threat. Beltran is not letting the ball travel in to him in key situations.
Beltran did have a key opposite-field double in the fifth and walked in the seventh, but tried to pull Turnbow’s pitch and paid the price.
If the Mets are to make any noise, they need Beltran’s electric bat. They need him to start playing like the superstar he was advertised to be when the Mets made him the $119 million man last winter.
After going 0-for-6 Tuesday night, Beltran was hit with another round of boos. He responded with these words: “If they want to continue to [boo], they can do it,” Beltran said. “I’ll be here for seven years.”
When he grounded out last night for the final out, the boos rang down again.
Mets fans need Beltran for the next seven years. Like the Astros needed him last year when manager Phil Garner said: “He’s everything. He can do it all. He’s as good as any player I’ve ever seen.”
That’s not the player Mets fans have seen.
“He has such high expectations for himself, he might be trying to do a little too much,” David Wright said. “He wants to go out and hit a home run every time out instead of just getting that base hit and doing things like that.
“Carlos will be fine. When he gets hot, he gets ridiculously hot.”
A win last night would have given the Mets three straight wins, a mild hot streak. The loss dropped them to one game over .500.
That’s who they are, two steps forward, and two steps back on the Road to Mediocrity.
Before last night’s loss, Wright said of Tuesday night’s win, “I’m a firm believer that kind of win can jump start a team. We need to pull together over the next couple weeks and get something going.”
They had something going last night until the bullpen self-destructed.
