Tuesday’s loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks was undoubtedly a tough pill to swallow for the Mets. After allowing the D-backs to erase a 4-0 lead, they had another chance to slam the door shut in the bottom of the 10th.
But Arizona fought back for a 6-5 win, with the tying and go-ahead runs coming on a Josh Reddick double down the right-field line off of Trevor May.
The ball was ruled fair initially and then confirmed via replay, though it’s still tough to see if the ball actually caught any of the line.
May said after the game that he had a pretty clear view.
“It’s foul, still is to this moment, in my opinion,” May said. “But they saw whatever they saw.
“The call is the call, that’s the way the game goes. Same thing, balls are balls when they’re called balls and strikes are strikes when they’re called strikes too. It’s just the way the game goes sometimes. They didn’t really have a good look. There’s one camera that was watching, evidently. … It’s tough, hard to deal with.”
“Tough to stay. I’ve got to stick to what they saw,” Luis Rojas said when asked about the call. “I know they have more angles than we do at the (Replay Center) … The only angle I got to see on the big screen was that side angle from like the first-base side, so I couldn’t really tell much. Either way we’re going to challenge it. It’s the end of the game, but we didn’t get any other angle.
“We’re just going to respect what it was at this point.”
After Edwin Diaz blew the save in the bottom of the ninth, Rojas turned to May to finish things out with a 5-4 lead in the 10th.
Even with a fresh arm like Seth Lugo available in the bullpen, Rojas elected to bring in May, who threw 26 pitches on Monday while allowing two earned runs in 0.2 innings.
Rojas explained the rationale behind the decision afterwards.
“May’s been pitching lately,” Rojas said. “He’s a guy who we foresee as strikeout guy with his pitch repertoire, and the only thing that we wanted him to probably add today was the slider and the changeup, and we thought he did.
“Everything was going in place and then he just lost the command, but that’s what we went to. I mean, he’s a guy that’s been high-leverage for us, that we trust. Situation there after using Diaz, Diaz is out of the game and we felt that May could help us to close the deal there.”
May ended up allowing two runs (one earned) on Tuesday while recording one out. His ERA on the season sits at 3.79, and the right-hander is not happy with how he’s performed in his recent outings.
“Less than sharp,” May said when asked about how he’s feeling. “…These stretches happen pretty much once a year, and it’s just trying to adjust and change your game plan based on what guys are showing you in the box. Guys prepare for you a certain way an you get in patterns, and then you’ve got to get out of those patterns and get back to what makes you good.
“It feels like I can get away with just about nothing right now, no mistakes, but it’s the way baseball is, man. Sometimes you feel like you’re going to flip that coin and it’s going to be heads every single time for a few games.
“It’s extremely frustrating, but make a plan for tomorrow, something actionable that will make me better moving forward, and just hyper-focus on that, and that’s what I plan on doing.”