After messy loss to Cubs, Mets' manager takes his team to task

Most of the remaining fans in Conforto jerseys were cheering for the visiting team, including a bunch of young men who were high-fiving one another after Kyle Schwarber’s eighth-inning home run opened up a 6-2 Cubs lead.

And a few minutes later, Conforto, the man of honor, was being lectured by his manager, first privately and then publicly, for missing a cutoff man in the seventh inning, a mistake that led to two runs.

“We’re not playing the game the right way,” a visibly angry manager Mickey Callaway told reporters after delivering a tongue-lashing to his team behind closed doors. “We just had something I said we weren’t going to do.”

Callaway was referring to a team meeting. In the past, he maintained such meetings were useless. But on this night — when the Mets got a fine pitching start from Zack Wheeler, who allowed two runs in six innings, and yet another home run from Brandon Nimmo, his fifth in his last 40 at-bats, only to see the bullpen blow its sixth game of the last eight — Callaway decided to suspend his own rule.

“So far, as a manager, Mickey hasn’t been a guy to get too riled up,” Jay Bruce said. “But tonight, he came in and talked to us. He talked with a purpose, for sure. And we definitely understand where he’s coming from.”

As if the gut-punch loss were not enough, the Mets also lost Bruce, who left the game in the fifth inning with lower back spasms.

Although both Callaway and Bruce were hopeful he would play on Saturday, it was just one more blow for a team already short on outfielders, with Yoenis Cespedes and Juan Lagares on the disabled list.

But what seemed to trouble Callaway the most was the poor fundamental play of his team and the growing unreliability of his bullpen. At least a half-dozen times in the postgame news conference, he used the phrase “not playing the game the right way,” and he was not at all reluctant to single out Conforto’s poor throw from center field in the seventh inning.

It occurred on a sacrifice fly to shallow center by Schwarber, who entered the game in a sixth-inning double switch. Conforto fired the ball well over the head of catcher Devin Mesoraco, allowing Tommy La Stella, who had preceded Schwarber with a pinch-hit single, to take second base.

La Stella scored easily on Ben Zobrist’s double to tie the game, and Zobrist scored two batters later on a Kris Bryant single that gave the Cubs a lead they never relinquished.

“We can’t miss cutoff men,” Callaway said, adding: “We could have kept the double play alive. Instead, we airmailed it to home, and that’s tough.”

Callaway was less critical of Paul Sewald, who became the latest Mets reliever to blow a game. Over their previous seven games, beginning with a 17-6 blowout loss to the Brewers in Milwaukee last Saturday, Mets relievers had allowed 33 of the 47 runs scored against the team, and a reliever had taken the loss in all five of the defeats.

“I think some of the guys are feeling that pressure,” Callaway said. “I’m sure when Paul Sewald came in he felt like, ‘I can’t blow it.’ That’s why it’s so important to play the game right.”

Sewald was charged with four runs in 1 2/3 innings. “It’s frustrating when you have to tell the starting pitcher ‘sorry’ over and over again,” he said.

Jeurys Familia allowed the Cubs’ final run in the ninth.

“It’s a tough loss because you’re in it, you feel really good about it, and all of a sudden you feel really bad. And it happens really fast,” Callaway said. “We’re in the games, it’s not like we’re getting our butts kicked every night. But the end result is a butt-kicking.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.