First base was open when Chicago Cubs third baseman Aramis Ramirez, a .300 hitter, walked to the plate with runners at second and third and two outs in the ninth inning Saturday. The Mets were hanging on to a one-run lead in a game that turned from a snooze to a thriller in an instant.
Mets Manager Terry Collins could have told his scattershot closer, Bobby Parnell, to walk Ramirez intentionally to face a rookie outfielder, Tony Campana. But Collins did not want to risk Parnell walking Campana to force in a run. So Parnell threw to Ramirez, and the Mets lost, 5-4.
?At this level, you?ve got to trust your guys,? said Collins, who took responsibility for the loss.
Ramirez punched a fastball from Parnell through the right side of the infield, driving in two runs. Parnell finished with his third blown save opportunity this month and his fifth this season, and his record fell to 3-6 after the Mets failed to score in the bottom of the ninth.
Parnell sat stonily at his locker after the game, tilted back in his chair. Manny Acosta had blown a save opportunity in the ninth inning Friday against the Cubs, but the Mets came back and won, 5-4. So Collins went back to Parnell, who got Ramirez to do what he wanted, kind of.
?I got a ground ball out of it,? Parnell said. ?Unfortunately, it was in the hole.?
He spoke about the challenge of becoming a closer. ?I didn?t expect it to be easy,? he said. ?I?m going to keep fighting. I?m not going to roll over, and I?m not going to give in.?
Even as they finish the season, the Mets like to think of themselves as a team that is not giving up. As proof, they came back from a three-run deficit by scoring four runs in the eighth at Citi Field before 30,443 people (and 332 dogs whose masters were allowed to walk them around the warning track before the game).
Jason Bay?s two-run single with two outs off reliever Kerry Wood gave the Mets the lead. Bay, who had an infield single in the seventh inning to extend his hitting streak to nine games, is hitting .405 over his last 12 games.
?We thought we stole one there in the eighth,? Mets third baseman David Wright said.
Wood picked off Bay to end the inning, and Cubs catcher Geovany Soto led off the top of the ninth by rapping a bouncing ball at Wright, who had made a throwing error in the fourth inning. Wright stopped the ball, but fumbled it, allowing Soto to reach base.
Pinch-hitter Bryan LeHair drove a 2-2 pitch from Parnell into the left-field corner for a double, and pinch-runner Lou Montanez ran to third base. But Parnell got Starlin Castro to bounce back to him, then struck out Reed Johnson, the Cubs? best hitter, with a 98-mile-per-hour fastball.
?You also need some breaks to go your way,? Mets starter Chris Capuano, who allowed one earned run in seven innings, said of Parnell.
With one more out, Parnell would have earned his sixth save, which Collins said ?would have been huge,? given his recent lack of success. But Collins did not want to load the bases, even if it meant pitching to Ramirez.
Parnell did not want to give Ramirez anything good to hit. His first pitch was a ball. His second pitch was a fastball, on the outside corner, maybe even ball two. Ramirez hit what Wright called a ?cue shot? that dribbled between first and second.
?Just poked it through,? Mets catcher Mike Nickeas said. ?That?s the way baseball goes sometimes.?
Mets shortstop Jose Reyes blamed himself for the loss because he also made two errors that led to Chicago runs. Collins said the Mets? four errors were not the reason his team lost.
Wright said, ?Collectively, this is on a lot of different people ? not Terry, not Bobby.?
Parnell, however, seemed to be having a hard time handling the loss. This is his chance to show the organization what he can do under pressure, and he actually did get Ramirez to make weak contact. But not weak enough.
?Looking back, I don?t know if I could have made too many different pitches,? he said.
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