CINCINNATI — The manager fell on his sword — calmly, serenely, stoically. The right fielder pondered life in a nebulous place where he was charged with an out when he hadn’t yet stepped in the batter’s box. The second baseman shrugged at the double that wasn’t a double, that will forever go down as a nonexistent at-bat, visible only in the ether.
And the fan base wonders: Is this rock bottom?
Or is this just a special sneak preview of rock bottom?
Such is life around the Mets these days, where it isn’t enough that the team is in an eight-losses-in-nine-games free fall; where it isn’t enough that they were walked-off by the Reds Wednesday, 2-1, meaning that they lost a series to the worst team in the National League; where it isn’t enough that they managed to score all of three runs in two days at the hitters’ paradise that is Great American Ball Park.