Those Mets

METS COLLAPSING

SINKING TEAM LOSES SERIES TO DBACKS!

The desert was supposed to provide refuge for the Mets, a soft spot on their 11-game, three-city trip out West. The D-backs rank among the weakest teams in baseball; half a season's worth of evidence exists to support that claim. Their hitters strike out with alarming frequency. Their pitchers lose with alarming consistency. But if the D-backs are the stoppable force in this parody, then the Mets are the movable object. On Tuesday, they moved yet again -- for the fourth time in five games -- in a 3-2 loss at Chase Field. "When you go out against a team that you feel is inferior to your own and you don't get it done, it's hard," losing pitcher R.A. Dickey said. "It's sad, because you don't get that many chances to do something special." It was difficult for the Mets, too, because this loss might have been preventable. They were losing by just a run in the fourth inning, when Dickey walked catcher Chris Snyder with two outs. The next batter, Gerardo Parra, skied a fly ball to deep center field, where Carlos Beltran hesitated for a quick moment before hustling after the ball, which landed just beyond his reach. "He covered it well and the ball carries here," Dickey said. "That's all I can say about that." Instead of an inning-ending flyout, Parra notched an RBI triple. And D-backs starter Barry Enright increased the damage when he bounced a run-scoring infield single to third base. "As soon as he hit it, I thought I was going to be able to make [the catch]," Beltran said of Parra's triple. "It just kept going and it went over my head." For Beltran, that has become a common theme in his first five games since returning from offseason knee surgery. Proficient on offense, Beltran has struggled to track down balls on defense that he once gloved with ease. "You never know what to expect when a guy comes back," Mets manager Jerry Manuel said. "He seems to be a little ahead of pace on the offensive side, but defensively there's been some issues where there's balls that we usually see Carlos Beltran get that he's not getting." Still, Dickey pitched for seven innings, allowing those two runs and Justin Upton's homer in the third. Battling less-than-ideal conditions in an indoor ballpark at altitude, Dickey managed to give the Mets a chance to win. Against Enright, though, they simply could not convert. Until Josh Thole hit a home run off the rookie to lead off the eighth, the Mets had rallied only once -- in the first inning, loading the bases with one out. But Ike Davis and Jason Bay struck out in succession to end that threat. And from there, Enright cruised, striking out eight over eight innings. "He moved it around," D-backs manager Kirk Gibson said. "He had all his pitches going. He was really in control of the game." For that, equal parts credit and blame must be given to Enright and the Mets' offense. The rookie delivered plenty of fine pitches, to be sure. But he also made mistakes. And the Mets, with their ideal lineup back on the field, weren't able to capitalize. Playing only their second game of the season with Beltran, Jose Reyes, David Wright and Luis Castillo all in the lineup, the Mets mustered merely seven baserunners. "We're still kind of finding our way a little bit with this setup we have now," Manuel said. "R.A. gave us every opportunity to win -- gave us a big chance. We didn't get it done. We're not quite playing the baseball that we played earlier." A fair portion of the offensive blame for this loss also settled upon the shoulders of Bay. After whiffing in his first two at-bats off Enright, Bay grounded into a double play after Davis reached on a one-out single in the seventh. He is now batting .189 in July. "He has definitely struggled, there's no doubt about it," Manuel said. "I think he's trying everything he can to come out of it. I believe that he will." But right now, he and the Mets are officially scuffling. Though Angel Pagan gave his team a modicum of hope with a homer to lead off the ninth, the heart of the Mets' lineup went in order against D-backs closer Juan Gutierrez. Had umpire Phil Cuzzi not blown a game-changing call Sunday in San Francisco, the Mets would have dropped their fifth straight game. As it was, they lost for the fifth time in their last six tries and the eighth time in their last 10, doing little to jostle Enright and hardly anything to support Dickey. They also fell 6 1/2 games behind the Braves, the furthest the Mets have been from first place since they were a season-high seven games out on May 21. Oh, and Dan Haren, Arizona's best pitcher, will start Wednesday. Something needs to change for the Mets -- and fast. "This is crazy," Beltran said. "We're getting good pitching from our starters and we haven't been able to put a good inning together."