In a sport that sells parity, the Mets sell parody.
While the Yankees have won 11 straight home games -- their most since 1985 -- the Mets finished an 0-6 homestand last weekend.
While the Yankees are on a scalding 17-1 streak -- their best since 1953 -- the Mets have won one game in May.
On April 20, the Yankees were 9-9, in third place in the AL East. The Mets were 14-5, in first place in the NL East. The Yankees have the best record in baseball since. The Mets have gone 4-12 since, sliding from first to fourth place, and they just lost two of three to a Reds team that entered the series with eight wins on the season.
MORE: Mets Trade Matt Harvey To Reds For Catcher Devin Mesoraco
While the Yankees can do no wrong, the Mets can do no right.
In keeping with their Bad News Bears motif, the Mets gave the umpire one lineup Wednesday, yet manager Mickey Callaway had another. So when Asdrubal Cabrera hit a ground rule double in the first inning, he was there illegally because he was not supposed to be there. The Reds rightly told the ump that Cabrera had batted out of order. Thus Jay Bruce was called out when he came to the plate with two outs.
Maybe it didn't matter. The Mets had eight innings (or nine, in this case) to fix the foible. Perhaps the Mets would have lost the game no matter how the first inning unfolded. But it feels so wholly Mets these days, their future pivoting on such a singularly bad blunder. So it's fitting that they lost by one run to the lowly Reds, 2-1 in 10 innings.
What happened? The Mets did start the season 11-1, shocking even the most hardened of their fans. You don't expect the surreal start to stretch for another month, but this is pure implosion. Last night my editor quipped, "Who knew that signing a bunch of old guys on the cheap wasn't gonna work out?" Indeed. But the Mets' moves this offseason didn't feel especially better or worse than anyone else's. Only Anaheim got the golden goose, Shohei Ohtani, a player who can hit 450-foot homers then chuck 100 mph fastballs, maybe the best two-way player since George Herman Ruth.
MORE: McCann: Tebow Still Adjusting, Seeking Consistency In Minor Leagues
Before the season I wrote that the Mets' fortunes were still tethered to Matt Harvey. Maybe Harvey didn't have his Dark Knight arsenal anymore, with this physical skills clearly diminished. But the Mets seemed to have some karmic connection to their former ace. So it's fitting to not only see their twin implosions, but also that the Mets lost to Harvey's new team, even as Cincinnati (10-27) owned the worst record in MLB.
Bad baseball, like bad play in any sport, can make an entire team look worse than they are. Just as the Yankees won't win 94 percent of their games the rest of the season, the Mets won't go 1-8 every nine games. But there's something especially rancid about not knowing your own batting order. Apparently, someone on the Mets entered it improperly into a computer. For his part, Callaway owned the error. And perhaps it's not quite as egregious considering he's a pitching coach by trade. But he's the skipper of the Mets now, in the Big Apple, the main nerve of American media. It just can't happen.
Why make all the comparisons to the Yankees when they have nothing to do with the Mets' mutilated month of May? We do it because the Yankees will always serve as an appalling contrast, a pinstriped backdrop to the Bad News Mets. If someone told you the Mets would be 18-17 on May 10, you likely would have asked where to sign. But it's hard to think of an uglier 18-17 right now, or ever.
Are the Mets the 11-1 club that started the season, or the 1-8 eyesore we see now? They have been both, but look a lot more like the latter these days. However, it only takes one good win to turn things around. The Mets just have to get their house in order, or at least understand their batting order.
Follow Jason on Twitter at @JasonKeidel
