They Don’t All Get Trophies, Terry

I can almost … almost deal with Terry Collins putting Daniel Murphy at first base instead of Lucas Duda if it was for a decent reason. And after the Mets latest loss to the Cardinals on Tuesday, Collins hinted at sound reasoning:

"Hey, look, Dan Murphy is a good first baseman. He's a very good first baseman. Lucas Duda hasn't had a ground ball all year long."

Well, wonderful. Never mind that Murphy has played the bulk of last season at second base, and that the Mets were afraid to move him to first then and mess up his development at second base. But whatever. Jerk two guys around instead of just making Lucas Duda and the rest of the world happy by getting him out of the outfield.

But before the game Terry came up with a stranger explanation as to why Daniel Murphy was at first instead of Duda:

Collins said the didn't want to move Duda to first because of the message it would send to Davis, like he was being replaced.

— Jared Diamond (@jareddiamond) June 11, 2013

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http://youtube.com/watch?v=
4Q3CZNKgnNE[/youtube]

When did Morris Albert become the Mets manager? Ike Davis, a .161 hitter, was sent down to Las Vegas on Sunday. I doubt Davis gives a flying pig who replaces him. He's in the minors!!! But that's the reason Terry gives for not putting Duda at first? It's almost as if Terry Collins is being haunted by the ghost of Mo Vaughn and he's managing just to get to the end of his contract without pissing off anybody and exorcizing his demons … because he figures that this is a lost season and he's gone at the end of the season anyway. And it's infuriating. Stop with the feelings! Start putting your players in a position to win, and not in a position to spare a minor leaguer's feelings. This isn't little league.

And of course, you knew, that somebody in this new defensive alignment was going to blow this game. Sure enough it was Murphy, whose error in the fifth led to five unearned runs for the Cardinals which salted the game away. Defense was a recurring theme as Murphy and Kirk Nieuwenhuis made errors which led to runs, while the Cardinals put on a defensive clinic at points during the game. And the attempt to jump start the roster gave us Nieuwenhuis' error and Josh Edgin walking home a run. That's what happens when you replace bad baseball players with more bad baseball players.

But hey, Ike's feelings were spared. And it showed in Davis' performance as he went 0 for 3 in his first game as a 51.