NEW YORK -- The Mets’ bats briefly ignited in Colorado, then went silent during the next stop at spacious Marlins Park. And the pattern repeated itself this week, with the Amazin’s putting up 21 run in two games at Yankee Stadium, then getting shut out in consecutive Subway Series games.
So is it as simple as blaming the ballpark?
“I wish I could answer that,” Terry Collins said after Thursday’s 1-0 defeat. “I don’t know what to add except a lot of it has to do with that, for sure.”
The last time the Mets had been shut out in back-to-back games at home? That came July 2-3, 1999, in games started by Atlanta’s Greg Maddux and Kevin Millwood.
There had never been a 1-0 Subway Series game in the history of the matchup.
“We’ve talked about it 100 times. To be successful in this ballpark, you can’t be a one-dimensional player,” Collins said. “You look at all the players that have had success here, it’s because they hit the ball from line to line.
“Dan Murphy is the one who sticks out as much as any. His offensive numbers in this park are very, very good because he doesn’t just try to pull balls. He uses the field. It’s such a big park, the wider you can open up where you hit the baseball, the more room you have for balls to fall in. It’s a tough place if you’re a dead-pull hitter to have success here. It’s a tough place.”
Said David Wright: “I think you can point to a few different things. Probably, first and foremost, you look at yourself in the mirror and you’ve got to have better at-bats. Pitching, obviously I think on both sides, was significantly better in this ballpark than it was the first two games. It seemed like our at-bats got worse, and probably some of that had to do with the pitching. And then, obviously, runs are probably more at a premium in this ballpark than that ballpark. So it’s probably a combination of those three things.”
