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New York Mets Major League Baseball scores, news, and player updates from November 2015
The big question is: "Why DID the Mets lose the World Series?" The truth is that the tone was set on the very first pitch thrown by Matt Harvey.
The Royals' Alcides Escobar lofted a long fly ball to left centerfield. Yoenis Cespedes, who had made so many spectacular defensive plays since coming over to the Mets, took his eye off the ball for a split second, could not regroup in time, and had the ball glance off his glove, and then, to make matters worse, kicked it away from both he and leftfielder Michael Conforto. What should have been a fly ball out to the warning track was a bad error...ridiculously ruled an inside-the-park home run.
While ONE play never TRULY determines the outcome of a series, unless it is a "walk-off" occurence in the final inning of the last possible game, it can set an example for how things will essentially go. And it did.
As Bob Newhart once said, "Stop It!" Just stop it! I have watched a number of sports reports on a number of different networks...listened to a number of radio talk shows on a number of different stations...and monitored a number of different social media outlets...and I am fed up with the "what have you done for me lately" people who have now put the monicker of "Goat" on Daniel Murphy. Yes...Murphy muffed a slow roller for an error in a crucial part of the game. But does anyone for a second believe that that error was the downfall of the Mets in Game 4? Come on!
The fact is that Tyler Clippard has not been effective for about a month. Regardless of "the formula" for getting to Jeurys Familia in the ninth inning, just like players have to make adjustments, so too must the managerial staff. Terry Collins, very deserving of his Manager of the Year Award, has made some ill-fated decisions during the series and leaving Clippard in after he walked the first batter was one of them, if not putting him in the game at all with the slimmest of one-run leads.
Alan Karmin is an award-winning journalist and author. He was born in Brooklyn, New York and spent most of his life growing up in the New Jersey suburbs. Alan's family were avid Brooklyn Dodgers fans and when the Dodgers moved west, the Mets became the team to root for. The Mets have always been a true focal point, Alan even wrote a term paper in high school to analyze what was wrong with the Mets. While at the University of Miami, Alan honed his craft covering the, gulp, Yankees during spring trainings in Fort Lauderdale for a local NBC affiliate, as well as the Associated Press and UPI. He broadcasted baseball games for the University of Miami, and spring training games for the Baltimore Orioles and Montreal Expos. New York Mets Mania is a forum for Alan to write about his favorite team and for baseball fans to chime in and provide their thoughts and ideas about New York's Amazin' Mets.