Those Mets

MANUEL DISSATISFIED WITH TEAM

Jerry Manuel's worst nightmare is materializing one week into the season, and it's obvious that he knows it because already he is taking a firmer stance with his ballclub than we saw through all of the blunders last season. Whether it's with his own job status in mind or simply a determination to set a less tolerant tone with his players, Manuel called the Mets "unprepared" after their 5-2 loss to the Nationals Sunday. He was referring specifically to their inability to adjust to Livan Hernandez's assortment of off-speed pitches over seven shutout innings, as emphasized by the pregame scouting report. But Manuel may well have been referring generally to a glass-jaw mentality that seemed to come over the Mets the instant their ace, Johan Santana, gave up a first-inning grand slam. One thing for sure, the manager didn't like what he saw. "Jerry was really hot," was the way one Mets person put it. Well, good for him. I thought he was too tolerant of the mindless baseball his team played too often last season, and while this wasn't a case of mistakes costing the Mets, at least he let them know he's not going to accept a ho-hum approach even in April. In truth, Manuel slammed his players, because there's not much worse than calling a team unprepared. He also did it the right way, saying "I have to take responsibility for that," but there was no mistaking the message he was sending. Jeff Francoeur acknowledged as much, practically admitting the players all but assumed an easy day because of the Santana-Hernandez matchup on the mound, the two-time Cy Young winner vs. the ageless soft-tosser whom the Mets released last season. "I think this was one of those games, looking at Santana vs. Livo, we felt comfortable," Francoeur said. "We've seen Livo, we've played with him, faced him, we felt like we could score some runs. "And whenever you have a guy like Johan on the mound you almost take it for granted what he's going to do. To be honest, when they scored those four runs in the first inning, for me it was like a shock." Francoeur also said he thought the early runs allowed Hernandez to change his approach, which may or may not have contributed to the Mets' woeful day at the plate. "You know him forever, he's going to throw pooh up there and get you to swing at everything," said Francoeur. "Today he kind of attacked the zone on us early, and we didn't do a good job of adjusting to that. It's disappointing." David Wright, meanwhile, was more willing to give Hernandez the credit for still being capable of throwing a gem when he's on his game, but also indicated the Mets may have been staggered by the early deficit. "You know what he's going to do," Wright said. "But when Livo is pitching like that, not making any mistakes, it's tough to come back from that deficit." Whatever, in another year it would be dismissed as one of those days, an early-season loss to be quickly forgotten. But not when so much emphasis has been placed publicly on getting off to a fast start after the 2009 disaster. Yet, sure enough, the Mets are 2-4 after a opening week when the pitching behind Santana was solid overall. Instead a sluggish lineup, even with Jose Reyes back the last two days, was the real culprit. Well, that and Santana's first-inning meltdown Sunday. Obviously the Mets might as well call off the season if their ace has too many days like this. And while it may have been a blip on the radar screen, the timing was terrible for a team with so much recent history to overcome. Of course, it's worse for a manager who was put on the hot seat by Jeff Wilpon at the end of last season. Manuel made veiled jokes throughout spring training about his job being on the line, implying that he knows he could be gone by June if the Mets start slowly. There were no jokes Sunday, however. With a tough road trip ahead, Manuel no doubt senses danger lurking already, so give him credit for taking a tougher tact with his team. All in all, however, it's just one more reason to sense doom and gloom ahead. (NY Daily News)