Collins’d

There is no shortage of potential Met goats in the game that left the Royals in command of the World Series despite trailing 4-3 going into the 8th. Cespedes getting doubled off as the trailing runner on a soft liner to end the game is inexcusable — the only upside of his disastrous in all aspects series is that Mets fans will feel less bad when he signs elsewhere — but needing two runs with two outs against Wade Davis is a pretty dire situation even in the absence of the Little League baserunning. Murphy’s error was indeed hugely important. But errors happen, and without the two walks it’s not a big deal. Clippard walking Cain (37 BB in 604 PA this year) after getting ahead 0-2 was the turning point in the game, but what do you expect out of a guy who hasn’t had decent stuff in more than a month? Who was nonetheless pitching in an ultra high-leverage 8th inning. Wait, what?

We need to back up here, because the biggest blunder of Satruday’s game occurred on Friday. Going into the series, the Mets had two obvious weak spots — bullpen depth and infield defense. The latter played a major role in two losses, but there’s not much you can do about that. With respect to the former, however, the Mets had the chance to attenuate the disadvantage, because they ran up a huge lead in game 3. Terry Collins, however, decided to bring in by far has best and really his only reliable reliever to pitch an inning with his team leading 9-3 and playing again the next two days.

The only possible defense of this is if Collins thought that Familia was capable of throwing five or six innings in games 3-5. Even then, it’s not a good idea — if he throws an inning in Game 3 and two in Game 4, you can’t count on him being effective throwing 2 in Game 5. But even that defense is unavailable, since Collins said after the game that it affected his decision not to bring Familia in for a six-out save. So, as far as category of blunder goes we’re firmly in Darrell Bevell/Grady Little territory here.

Of course, the Mets could have won anyway, had Murphy made the play. Familia could have blown a six-out save. But, then, Malcom Butler could have dropped the ball, or Jorge Posada’s bloop could have been directed towards a fielder. Coaching blunders can never guarantee a loss; they make the percentages a lot worse than they need to be. Collins lost with arguably his worst available pitcher starting the 8th inning, in part because he wasted his best reliever in an extremely low-leverage situation the night before. Given that it was a pivotal World Series game, that’s an historic blunder.

Ned Yost, on the other hand, had his closer well-rested, and he came in at the beginning of the 8th. Checkmate.