Collins Cracks Up, Batista Delusional

To be completely fair to Terry Collins, I purposely chose to “sleep on it” before addressing here the Pedro Beato apology and ensuing team meeting called by Collins. Maybe after a good night’s sleep, and a fresh look at the situation, it would make more sense to me.

Unfortunately, it does not.

For those who missed it, the Mets lost game one of the current Washington series after a wild pitch by Beato allowed the winning run to score from third base with two outs in the tenth inning. It was a really wild pitch, once that not even Johnny Bench could have handled (though, a few of my catching students, who are young and spry, might have had a shot). After the ballgame, this is what Beato said about the pitch (per ESPN-NY):

“I tried to get it down … on the floor, so he can swing over it. And I yanked a little too far. Unfortunately, Thole wasn’t able to get to it and it got away from him.”

I’ve read and re-read the above about a hundred times over the past 24 hours. I’m still trying to figure out what part of it is offensive to Josh Thole, what part required Beato to apologize to Thole, and what part stimulated Collins to call a team meeting. Also from ESPN-NY:

“We’re going to talk about, ‘Hey, look, this is a tough time right now. The one thing we’ve done in the past, that we talked about in spring training, we’re going to do it together. We’ve got your backs. Let’s go,'” Collins said. “We’ve got to grind this thing out, because that’s how we got to this point. This is an important part where this thing can go flat. We’re not going to let it.”

Collins continued, referring to the Beato quote without explicitly naming it: “I didn’t like what I saw happen after the game last night. I read that one of our players said something that he shouldn’t have said. I didn’t like that quote. So we’re going to address it today. I talked to him about it already. He didn’t mean it to come out the way it came out. So we’re going to make sure it’s addressed in a little bit, because we can’t let that happen. We can’t let that drive a wedge in this thing. We’ve worked too hard to get it going smooth.”

Huh? There was absolutely nothing in Beato’s comment that suggested he believed the ball should have been stopped by Thole. He stated a simple fact, and if anything, Beato took responsibility.

(Ironically, immediately after it happened, Ron Darling in the SNY booth stated to the TV audience that Thole “has to stop that ball” — more than once. Did Darling also have to apologize to Josh?)

Help me out, because either I’m missing something, or Terry Collins is cracking up. Those who have been waiting for Collins to revert to the irrational personality that caused him to leave his last two managerial posts are seeing this as the beginning of the end. It’s a sign of panic.

But lucky for Collins, the spotlight is now on Miguel Batista, who sincerely believes the Mets are “the best team in baseball.” It’s one thing to have confidence, but quite another to be completely detached from reality. The best? Really? The conspiracy theorist in me wonders if this is Batista taking a bullet for Collins, to divert the attention away from his manager.

Hey, maybe Batista is right, and we’ll see the Mets winning the World Series, and he’ll be telling everyone “I told you so.” If not, he’ll go down in New York history — this comment will be remembered fro a long, long time. That’s one way to gain immortality.

Is it me, am I the crazy one? Please let me know in the comments.