ATLANTA – If Mo Vaughn isn’t having nightmares, he guesses some of his teammates might be.
Night terrors of 0-for-5 outings, unforgivable errors and games the Mets must win in September because they lost them in April and May might be dancing through the subconscious of the players, according to Vaughn.
Entering last night’s big game against the Braves, the Met first baseman was hitting only .234 with four homers and 18 RBIs – and he believes he’s one of many over-analyzing everything about his job.
“Until guys play like they want to play, they are always thinking about what you need to do to be successful,” Vaughn said Sunday. “You think about it 24 hours a day. You’re probably dreaming about it when you’re sleeping.
“That’s how we got [to the major leagues], constantly evaluating the good things and the bad things. Right now, there’s more bad things to evaluate.”
On Sunday night, Vaughn felt compelled to evaluate his team and the NL East, and he made a prediction: If the Mets play to their capabilities, they will win the division. Entering a critical four-game series with the Braves last night, the Mets (29-27) were in second place 1.5 games back.
“Forget about the errors, forget about us not hitting, pitching, guys not having this or that,” Vaughn said. “That [stuff] doesn’t matter now.
“If we just stop the tape and wake up tomorrow and realize it’s all right in front of us for us to take, then we will play the way we’re capable of playing. You can’t look back from situation to situation.
“Start the tape and start over tomorrow. Realize that we’re right here, this thing is out here for us to take.”
If you evaluate the Mets’ play in the last two weeks, you’ll find a lot not to like. The Local .240s had lost eight of their last 13 since a five-game road winning streak. The hitting is still hit-or-miss.
Entering last night, the Mets were 12th in runs, 14th in home runs, 15th in slugging percentage and 13th in on-base percentage.
“We’ve got a lot of older guys here that realize we’ve got four months left,” reliever David Weathers said. “If we’re 10 games back and just playing terrible baseball, I think there’d be room for concern.
“We’re a game-and-a-half back with four months to go. I think guys know how we’re playing now is not going to cut it the rest of the year. We have to pick it up a notch and start playing better.”
The pitching was a constant when the team was in first place, but it faltered in the last series in Miami. Rey Ordonez’ 10th-inning homer held up in a series-opening win, but the Mets dropped the next two games to the Marlins and allowed 21 runs in three games, their worst series to date. Also, they hadn’t lost a series to Florida since July 3-5, 2000.
Weathers, one of the team’s voices of reason, cautioned that the pitching won’t be perfect the rest of the season. As of last night, the Mets were still second in the majors.
“You’re going to have those letdowns,” Weathers said. “That won’t be our only bad series.”
For those who will point to this series with Atlanta as one of the measuring sticks of the season, Weathers has a message: Don’t put too much stock into it.
“Say we win this series 3-1 and then we don’t play well in Cleveland and Chicago, it won’t mean anything,” Weathers said. “This game is built on consistency.”
