There is a fine line between being aggressive and going for it and just flat out panicking. The way Terry Collins managed last night was clearly the former. 

In his two innings of work Gabriel Ynoa was getting hit by the Phillies. He allowed five hits, two runs, two earned, and one walk with only one strikeout. There were no extra base hits or any balls hit particularly hard. Still, Ynoa wasn’t fooling anyone. With him having already thrown 43 pitches, it was hard to imagine him going deep in the game. 

However, no reasonable person could expect what happened next. 

Travis d’Arnaud hit a two out RBI double to pull the Mets within 2-1. Then, rather than let Ynoa make his obligatory out to end the inning, Collins pinch hit Ty Kelly for Ynoa. In the second inning, Collins chased the run and pulled his starter from the game. If it’s Game Seven of the World Series where there’s no tomorrow, and you have your full compliment of arms, sure; why not? However, the Mets do have a game tomorrow. 

By the way, in that game, the Mets are starting Sean Gilmartin because Noah Syndergaard has strep throat. Gilmartin’s last start was over a month ago. This means, at best, you can expect him to go five innings. More likely, you’re going to get less than that. With that in mind, you need as many guys as you can pitch tomorrow. 

The Mets also needed to rest their bullpen as they have been taxed lately. Here is the breakdown in how much they’ve been used this week:

• Sunday 4.1 innings
• Monday 5.1 innings
• Tuesday 3.2 innings 
• Wednesday 2.1 innings 
• Thursday 6.0 innings

With that usage, Collins was asking his bullpen to find him seven innings the day before he was likely going to have to go deep into the bullpen again. Also, Sunday’s starter is Robert Gsellman who is averaging 5.2 innings per start meaning the Mets will most likely need to go deep into their bullpen again.  

However, that’s addressing the future; a future that Collins ignored. Let’s focus on yesterday’s game. 

Heading into the game, Collins already announced Addison Reed and Jeurys Familia were unavailable.  Gilmartin is unavailable as he’s pitching tomorrow. All of the Mets arms have been used multiple times all week meaning the fresh arm in the bullpen was Logan Verrett. Verrett was where Collins went. 

This season Verrett has a 5.22 ERA. Batters are hitting .284/.364/.530 off of him. While Ynoa hasn’t been great in his limited major league sample size, but there was no reason to believe Verrett would actually be a better option. If the Mets truly believed that Verrett was the better option, he would have been named the starter when it was announced Steven Matz was being shut down for the season. 

Verrett would go out there and pitch two pretty ugly innings of his own. He allowed a leadoff homer to Maikel Franco in the third. He would then load the bases in the fourth, and he would narrowly escape the jam. 

With Verrett pitching poorly, Collins would have to desperately find guys to go multiple innings to try to avoid going to Reed and Familia. 

He first tried Josh Smoker. In his second inning of work, Darin Ruf would hit a two run homer off of him.  Erik Goeddel would come in for Smoker and pitch a clean inning. 

Despite his history of arm problems, Collins would try to push Goeddel another inning. When he got into a jam, Collins brought in Josh Edgin for a batter. After Edgin allowed a single, Collins did what he usually does in these situations. Collins brought in Hansel Robles not just to get out if the jam, but also to pitch the final 2.2 innings to get the win. 

Robles did his job as did most of the Mets bullpen last night. However, Collins didn’t. He put the Mets in a position to empty their bullpen of their worst relievers instead of allowing Ynoa to go deeper in the game. 

Now, the Mets bullpen is taxed, and it she’s not PpeR things will get better for them anytime soon.