Savor the win, but Jeurys Familia's blown save leaves dark cloud over Mets' win
Jeurys Familia of the Mets hands the ball to manager Mickey Callaway as he leaves a game in the ninth inning against the Reds at Citi Field on Tuesday. Credit: Jim McIsaac
Jeurys Familia was great in a set-up role Tuesday night, the type of performance the Mets had been desperately seeking from their $30-million reliever.
He entered in the eighth inning, and needed only seven pitches to protect a 3-1 lead. Familia even struck out Yasiel Puig on three straight sinkers, all resulting in futile swings.
The problem? The Mets needed him to close, too.
And that part didn’t go so well. It was a disaster, actually.
So instead of celebrating the Mets’ stirring 4-3 walkoff victory, which came courtesy of Pete Alonso’s sacrifice fly in the 10th inning, we’re stuck with Familia’s blown save, a dark cloud that threatens to haunt this club for months to come.
The Mets bailed him out Tuesday in a solid comeback win. Nice job by them. But it’s one night, and if we’re taking a longer view here, Familia remains a big concern. Not just because he torched a 3-1 lead, but how he did it.
Familia, still rolling from the eighth, whiffed the first two Reds he faced on a total of seven pitches, Tucker Barnhart and Derek Dietrich. That’s two outs, nobody on base. A clear, smooth path to the finish. Yet for some bizarre reason, Familia then walks Jesse Winker on four pitches.
Winker is dangerous, sure. But Familia is supposed to be an intimidator as well, with 124 career saves on his resume, all but one of them in Flushing. The Mets aren’t paying him to be careful, or tip-toe through the late innings. He’s got to be a Terminator, and once he walked Winker, Familia started leaking oil.
Jose Iglesias followed by punching a 96-mph sinker into centerfield, but the crusher was pinch-hitter Kyle Farmer, who was 4-for-24 on the season. Farmer immediately fell behind 0-and-2, then Familia tried to get him to chase a slider off the plate. He chased -- but got it, lifting a soft liner over Pete Alonso’s head.
“He just stuck his bat out,” Familia said through an interpreter.
That was soft contact -- Mickey Callaway’s favorite excuse -- but Jose Peraza delivered the tying run with a hard shot up the middle. And that was it for Familia, who exited to loud boos, not quite the homecoming he imagined when he signed that three-year deal in December. When asked if he was upset by the boos, Familia shook his head.
“No, no,” he said. “That doesn’t hurt me at all. I’ve been here for a while.”
But how much longer can Callaway keep him in such high-leverage spots? Going into Tuesday’s game, the manager’s plan was to use Familia in that exact situation. With Edwin Diaz fried after three straight appearances, Callaway expected to lean on Familia, also giving him a chance at redemption in the process. So what did he take away from Familia’s meltdown?
“I saw a guy that was light’s out for five outs,” Callaway said. “His stuff is there. His stuff is undoubtedly there. And we asked a lot of him tonight. Getting six outs -- he got five of them. So I think he’s got to understand that getting five outs, that was big for us, and then the guys behind him came in and picked him up and we got the win.
“We’ll continue to get him out there and get him going. But he’s got to take pride that he got five big outs in this game.”
We get it. Callaway has to lather on the positivity. But five outs isn’t enough when the Mets need six. Relievers don’t get partial credit. You either finish the job or you don’t. Familia, who was visibly shattered at his locker, understands that. For all the good things Familia was able to do Tuesday night, the end result left a bad taste. There was no disguising that part.
“I’ve been having kind of a bad season,” Familia said.
The Mets brought Familia back for a set-up role because they thought he would excel in that assignment, and with his experience, could be a capable fill-in for the elite Diaz. Familia has done neither, but Callaway insisted he’ll still get those high-leverage opportunities.
“Yeah, absolutely,” Callaway said. “That’s what we got him for. We’re gonna get him going.”
The Mets came within a pitch of doing that Tuesday. But that wasn’t close enough.
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.
