Palladino: Collins' Snipe At Mets' PR Wiz Horowitz A Function Of Pressure
By Ernie Palladino
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Managers tend to get cranky when the proverbial bullets fly like a nest of hornets around their team.
Terry Collins has that right now. And, guess what? He cracked a bit.
Not all the way, mind you. But his upbraiding of Jay Horowitz, one of the nicest and best team PR men in the business, for urging him to talk about Noah Syndergaard's elbow Wednesday showed how much strain Collins is under at the moment.
This is not an excuse for Collins' behavior. Calling Horowitz a "puppy dog" as the manager offered a short explanation of Syndergaard's removal from Wednesday's game after six innings and ensuing trip to the Hospital for Special Surgery to have a pain in his right elbow checked out was clearly out of line. In fact, it was downright mean, and quite out of character for a 67-year-old who changed from tough to accommodating during a Mets tenure that started in 2011.
MORE: Terry Collins Apologizes For Insulting Mets' PR Director
There was a lot of losing in those years. But Collins, undoubtedly with some guidance from an ever-loyal, ever-professional Horowitz, navigated through the bad years with the skill of a Hudson River tugboat pilot.
But that was relatively easy to do compared to what is happening now. The Mets' ascendance to National League champions last year brought exponentially inflated expectations for this year. Due to injuries and other factors, their season is not working out to quite what folks expected. Instead, they make little jabs at the Nationals' NL East lead, only to have a something like Thursday's 4-3 flop in Atlanta interrupt the two-game winning streak they had at World Series conqueror Kansas City's expense.
Then, during Wednesday's 4-3 victory, he not only saw his star pitcher cut short a fine outing with a worrisome elbow, but also witnesses his hitting star, Yoenis Cespedes, leave in the sixth with a sore left wrist.
Lucky for him, both Syndergaard and Cespedes came out of it relatively well. Syndergaard will not miss his next start, and Cespedes should come around from a cortisone shot in a couple of days.
The offense and the rotation will not fall apart. The season will not sink like the Titanic.
For now, at least.
But consider that both those things came on the heels of Bartolo Colon's scary thumb injury early in the week, and the continued absence of Lucas Duda and Juan Lagares, one can easily see how Collins might get a bit snappish.
Then, there's the rumblings that the Mets might pursue a Jose Reyes redux.
That's a whole bag of tension right there.
The Rockies' release of Reyes' come Saturday will only heat up the speculation that the troubled shortstop will head back to Citi Field. He had a bunch of good seasons in his nine in Flushing, but that was before he grabbed his wife by the throat and shoved her into a sliding glass door in November.
For whatever the 33-year-old might offer by way of bench depth and hitting, even Collins must wonder if it's worth the headache of bringing in a player who Major League Baseball saw fit to suspend for 53 games this year despite the lack of an indictment. It's always tough to bring in a player with that kind of stain, given the heightened awareness of the horrors of domestic violence.
But Collins may well have to answer those questions, too, since both sides appear to want to make this thing happen.
MORE: Kallet: Reasons To Bring Reyes Back To Mets Far Outweigh The Concerns
Injuries. Reyes. An anorexic offense. An bullpen that has turned unreliable. Second place. A major scare with two pivotal players.
That's a lot for any manager.
Again, this is not a defense of Collins' behavior toward Horowitz, a man who has lived, breathed, and reveled in his job over the past 40 years. Calling him out as Collins did was unconscionable.
But it also showed the kind of pressure Collins faces these days.
He could use a break.
But since that won't happen anytime soon, he'll just have to keep his cool better while the hornets keep buzzing.
Follow Ernie on Twitter at @ErniePalladino
