Those Mets

WHAT TO DO WITH THE COACHES?

HORRIFIC SLUMP INSPIRES TALK OF POSSIBLE FIRINGS

The last time the Mets were in the midst of a 2-9 crisis was in the middle of May, when Jeff Wilpon flew to Atlanta to meet with his baseball staff. At the time, Wilpon, the team’s chief operating officer, chose a course of patience that temporarily worked as the Mets won 21 of their next 29 games. The team appears to be following the same destructive blueprint, although the expiration date on Wilpon’s patience may not be quite as far away. No changes in the coaching staff were announced Monday after the Mets returned from their 2-9 trip out West. General Manager Omar Minaya met with Manager Jerry Manuel and his coaches on the plane ride back from Los Angeles on Sunday night and then teleconferenced with his front-office staff on Monday to try to find solutions to the current slump. After the Mets were shut out for the fourth time on the trip Sunday, Minaya would not say whether the coaching staff would be back for Tuesday’s game at Citi Field. But he ultimately decided not to make a change, much the way he and Wilpon refrained from doing anything in May when there was speculation Manuel would be fired. But the coaches are clearly on notice. The team is willing to give them a chance while the Mets are at home for the week against the Cardinals and the Diamondbacks, but things must improve. Because of the lack of offense, the hitting coach Howard Johnson appears to be the most vulnerable. The Mets are rather fond of Johnson and want to give him every chance to succeed. But they also see a team that continues to struggle at the plate, even before the trip began. In their last 16 games, the Mets have averaged two runs per game and have been shut out five times. They scored more than four runs only once in that stretch, and hit .212 as a team. No one was blaming Johnson for the lack of production, but neither could anyone point to another reason. “I have no idea,” said Jason Bay, who briefly emerged from his slump with multihit games Friday and Saturday after working closely with Johnson. “It started right before the break when we were at home playing against Cincinnati and Atlanta, which are good teams. Then we come out here and, give credit to the Giants pitchers. But we’re better than that. We’re better than getting shut out or scoring one or two runs..” Bay is not the only one to disappoint at the plate. Carlos Beltran looks like a fragment of his former (healthy) self, David Wright is exhausted, and no one can get Jose Reyes home. Since coming back from a strained oblique muscle July 19, Reyes has hit in all seven games (.313). But he has scored only two runs in his last 10 games, both coming in the Mets’ 6-1 victory over the Dodgers on Friday. Beltran looks slow and awkward in the field, and has only six hits in 36 at-bats (.167) since returning July 15 from a knee injury that cost him the first half of the season. Worse, there is little noticeable enthusiasm, even for the normally reserved Beltran, since his return. In the final two games in Los Angeles, Beltran walked to his position in center field for 13 of the 16 innings. Perhaps he is trying to preserve his surgically repaired knee, but it stood in contrast to the energy that drove the team before he came back. Finally, Wright needs a day off. But he said Sunday that with the team so desperate for a win, he cannot afford to rest right now. After going 8 for 44 on this recent trip, Wright’s batting average (.298) dipped below .300 for the first time since June 26. He has missed only one game all season, on May 19, and he also played in the All-Star Game. “In a perfect world, yeah, you’d like a day,” he said Sunday. “But we’ve dug ourselves a hole and I don’t think it’s possible right now. We’ll play it day by day. I want to win and if I feel like I’m helping t