It Still Doesn't Work, Stupid

So if, after one game, Terry Collins' innovative and experimental strategy to jump start the lineup by  batting his pitcher 8th didn't work, yeah, why not try it again?

I think everyone probably feels about as exasparated as Jon Niese looks in the above photo.

Niese did about as much as he could to try to keep the Cardinals at bay last night, but he was done in by some long hits in the 5th inning, and a betrayal by his defense (specifically Daniel Murphy, who made one of his trademark Daniel Murphy errors that serves to remind everyone that for all he does, he's still Daniel Murphy) in the 6th inning, and the end result was that he took the loss. Not that he deserved it, but that's the game. You pitch well and often don't reap the benefits. Especially when you're a Met.

In support of his general yeoman's work, the innovative and experimental Mets lineup generated 2 runs, both of them coming on Home Runs. The first one came from David Wright when the game was meaningful. The second came from Lucas Duda, in the trademark Lucas Duda Home Run situation: a 5-1 game in the 9th inning. The rest of the Mets lineup, from 9th place hitter Eric Young Jr, to leadoff hitter Curtis Granderson did very little against Michael Wacha, or any of the other pitchers the Cardinals threw out the Mets. 

The point is, this team can't hit no matter where the pitcher hits in the batting order, and trying to shake things up by shuffling the same crap around the batting order doesn't help anything. The problem here is that there's no punch. d'Arnaud didn't hit in the Majors and now he's back in AAA, where he's promptly hit .450 with 5 Home Runs in about a week, Juan Lagares is on the DL and nobody among Kirk Nieuwenhuis, Matt den Dekker and Eric Young Jr have proven themselves to be especially adequate, and, of course, there's the train wreck that is Chris Young, and these guys playing on an every day basis leads to what we've basically seen over the past month: No Damn Good. Being experimental and innovative isn't going to help the situation.