Mets fall to Marlins on Nieve's wild pitch

MIAMI - It was Fernando Nieve's wild pitch to Dan Uggla in the ninth inning last night that decided the Mets' 2-1 loss to the Marlins at Sun Life Stadium.

But the greater issue haunting Jerry Manuel's crew is the misfiring lineup, and the root of that problem is the ongoing troubles of Jose Reyes, who was asked to bunt in a game-changing situation for the second consecutive game - and failed again.

Either Reyes is qualified to be the Mets' No. 3 hitter or he is not, and if Manuel continues to want him to bunt, that strategy is inconsistent with what a team should expect from that spot in the order.

After Johan Santana and Josh Johnson battled to a 1-1 tie for seven innings in the fourth meeting between the two aces, the Mets got a gift in the ninth when Brian Barden's throwing error on Luis Castillo's infield single put him at second with none out.

That left the Mets with three chances from the middle of the order - Reyes, Jason Bay and David Wright - but Manuel called on Reyes for the sacrifice. After Wednesday's failed attempt against the Nationals, Reyes worked on his bunting Thursday afternoon. But twice he bunted foul against Leo Nuñez before flying out to leftfield.

"I don't have an excuse there," said Reyes, who went 0-for-4 to drop his average to .221. "I have to move that runner somehow. I'm better than that."

Not right now, and that's why Manuel may need to rethink his batting order, which is what he suggested after last night's loss. As for calling on his No. 3 hitter to bunt - an unusual ploy in itself - Manuel saw no problem with it.

"We had the situation where we felt we could get a fly ball and get [Castillo] in," Manuel said. "When you ask a guy to sacrifice, it slows the game down some, and that was part of the process. You expect him to get the bunt down, but he still seemed a bit anxious. We still had a couple shots."

But the Mets never got Castillo any closer to the plate. Bay grounded out to third and Wright whiffed to end the threat. It was the 18th strikeout in the last 10 games for Wright, who was second in the majors with 47 overall at that point. He has struck out at least once in 29 of his 35 games.

The Mets entered Thursday batting .236 with runners in scoring position, and after a 2-for-9 performance, Manuel was especially discouraged by the ninth inning. "We've got to start swinging the bats," he said. "We probably have to take the next couple days and see where we are as an offensive club. If we continue to see that, we'll have to make some adjustments."

Short of adding Carlos Beltran, who is more than a month away, there's no indication that even shuffling the same names would help. But as long as the Mets squander their few opportunities, they leave themselves vulnerable to what happened in the ninth inning, when Nieve (1-2) threw away the game.

After the reliever issued a one-out walk to Cody Ross, Ronny Paulino punched a single to rightfield that put runners at the corners. With Uggla pinch hitting, Nieve's first pitch bounced wildly away from Rod Barajas as Ross scored easily from third.

"We were going to throw [Uggla] breaking balls away and hope something good happens," Barajas said. "But the pitch backed up on him, hit my glove and hopped over my shoulder."

In the silver lining department, Santana was able to put up back-to-back strong starts after his May 2 prime-time debacle in Philadelphia - and this might have been his best outing this season. With a superb changeup and slider, Santana allowed six hits and one unearned run in seven innings in lowering his ERA to 3.88. He struck out five and walked one.

"I felt good," Santana said, "but you know coming into a game like this, it's going to come down to one mistake."