TORONTO – During a growing shortage of good, clean pickups by Mets infielders comes further bad news. In at least one ballpark, even the fun no longer is good and clean.
As the Mets lost yesterday for the ninth time in 12 games, 7-3 to the Jays, five strippers put on a show of their own in a SkyDome Hotel room window overlooking left-center field. The Mets, to their credit, didn’t complain about any bad bounces, either during 15 minutes the girls entertained or after Al Leiter’s four walks in the fifth and sixth innings climaxed in Marty Cordova’s game-killing grand slam.
Later, a man and woman clad partially and intermittently in towels embraced on the bed against a right-center-field window. They appeared to be almost as naked as Melvin Mora seems these days as baseballs continue to expose the truth that as an everyday shortstop, he makes a good outfielder. When a Homer Bush hopper went off Mora’s glove heel, only charitable scoring failed to charge the shortstop with the sixth error in his last 18 games.
Granted, only if you fail to recognize that the out-for-the-year Rey Ordonez has better speed of hand than foot does Alberto Castillo’s run-scoring ground ball through the hole in the fifth, Raul Mondesi’s bouncer up the middle in the sixth and Tony Batista’s grounder to the hole in the same inning turn into outs that would have saved Leiter from complaining about rookie home plate umpire Mike Fichter’s moving strike zone. Ordonez would have gotten rid of Bush’s hopper in the fifth faster than Mora, perhaps in time to double a speedy runner and save a run. But contrary to memory, Ordonez didn’t glide across water.
“There isn’t a shortstop in the game who gets those balls,” said Bobby Valentine. “[Bush] is the fastest runner in the league. I didn’t see any problems by Melvin out there today.”
But a day the Mets were not charged with any errors might be a more appropriate one to make the point you can’t grade a team’s defense strictly by its fielding percentage. That number is only a manifestation of often-arguable decisions by scorers.
The play defenses make to save a run is what makes them good ones. And largely only good ones win in the playoffs, when the scores are as low as chronic butchers are forced to lie to save their teams every precious out. Every bobble or ball that drops puts that much more pressure on pitchers and ultimately hitters, including Mora, whose solid .272 batting average is held as Exhibit A by the prosecutors of Ordonez.
The additional loss off Robin Ventura to the 15-day disabled list with a bruised rotator cuff has left the Mets left side raw as an open wound. After Leiter had retired the first 11 Jays, Matt Franco fearlessly charged Raul Mondesi’s tapper and made a difficult throw across his body. Franco really did everything right, just not as smoothly and quickly as a five-time Gold Glover likely would have to save a hit.
“Sure, we got spoiled last year,” said Leiter. “That’s not a knock on Matty or Melvin, but Rey and Robin are two of the best on that side. And last year, our infield defense was the best in the history of the game.
“Now, that doesn’t change my mindset about how I work to hitters. I have to throw stuff that gets ground balls and hope plays are made. As long as the effort [behind him] is there, that’s all you can ask for. I’m not that great myself.”
Indeed, Leiter’s ERA rose from 2.47 in 1998 to 4.23 last year behind that world’s greatest infield defense. And, for sure, Mora has already driven in 20 more runs and collected 27 more hits in just 57 more at-bats than Ordonez. But at least one game, in Boston Thursday night, already has gotten away as a direct cause of a Mora botch of a routine play. And now his adventures figure to be compounded by the absence of Ventura for what the Mets pray will be only two weeks.
“I don’t have any anxiety,” said Valentine. “I put major league players out there who can do the job and will get better at it.”
The manager can’t really say anything else without risk to an out-of-position player’s confidence, or being accused of putting insubordinate pressure on Steve Phillips to make a move. There may not be one to make. But in dribs that go off the heel of Mora’s glove, and drab losses like yesterday’s, the Mets’ failure to make defensive plays is catching up to them.
It is lost in the statistics of a team whose .983 fielding percentage coming into yesterday’s game was tied for second in the National League. But just because a cost is incalculable, doesn’t make it hidden. If only the Mets could cover up as quickly as the ladies in left-center when, presumably, hotel security knocked.
