The World Series may have ended on Sunday night, but the outcome of Game 5 will haunt New York Mets manager Terry Collins for a long time.
Collins let starter Matt Harvey begin the ninth inning holding a 2-0 lead despite the pitcher having thrown over 90 pitches in the game and lingering concerns over Harvey’s workload post-Tommy John surgery. Still, most fans wanted to see Harvey out there for the ninth, and the pitcher’s fiery attitude made it hard to disagree:
I might watch this on repeat a thousand times pic.twitter.com/YbGrIQrdsa
— Mike (@TheMikeDonnelly) November 2, 2015
Even after letting Harvey start the inning, Collins should have pulled the starter when he lost a 1-2 count and ended up walking Lorenzo Cain. Instead he kept Harvey in to surrender an RBI double Eric Hosmer that made it 2-1. Collins then put in Jeurys Familia, who got three straight ground balls that should have ended the game for the Mets, but a bad throw by Lucas Duda allowed KC to tie it.
“I know he was throwing well, but one of the things I’ve tried to pride myself in here is really trust my players. It’s one of the things I’ve learned through the years of managing,” Collins told FOX’s Ken Rosenthal after the game regarding his decision to stick with Harvey. “This kid, who has had a tough year, he looked me in the eye and said, ‘I’ve got to have this game.’ And for what he’s been through and what he’s trying to accomplish, I said ‘you can go out there and get the job done.’ It just didn’t happen.
“I’m going to second-guess myself for a long time, but I truly believe you gotta support your players once in a while and that kind of heart and that kind of desire is hard to find. I’d have taken him out and we’d allow the runs and it would have been the wrong decision anyway.
“We’ve had a tremendous year and nobody thought we’d ever get to this point. We’ll get better because of it.”
I was in the small minority of people who would have preferred to see Collins go to Familia to start the inning. And I was pretty shocked he didn’t pull the pitcher immediately after he lost the 1-2 count and walked Cain. Still, despite sticking with Harvey perhaps a batter too long, Collins’ moves were enough to win the game. All Duda had to do was make a decent throw home to get Hosmer and the Mets would have sent the series to a sixth game.
Let’s just hope that Collins’ wife gives him a break over the way Game 5 turned out.
