Brett Baty takes accountability for crucial throwing error in Mets' loss: 'That one's completely on me'
With the Mets up 6-3 and the bases loaded in the bottom of the eighth against the Philadelphia Phillies on Sunday, RHP Jeff Brigham came in for relief and forced a grounder to third base. It looked as if Brett Baty and the Mets were about to turn a clutch double-play and potentially escape the inning with limited damage.
Instead, the 23-year-old bobbled the ball on his throw to second, tossing it wide of Jeff McNeil and not even getting the force at second. The run scored from third to make it a 6-4 game with no outs, and then Brigham walked in a run and hit two consecutive batters to give the Phillies a 7-6 lead.
New York failed to come back in the ninth, losing the game and series after appearing like they were going to take both with ease. Baty was asked about the throwing error after the loss and took full responsibility for his mistake, saying "that play's gotta be made."
"I just couldn't get it out of my glove," Baty said. "There's really no excuse, that play needs to be made 10 times out of 10. That cost us the game, cost us the series, and cost us a lot of momentum that we had coming in from yesterday. It was bad."
Baty added: "That one's completely on me, that's not on anyone else in here. Everybody battled the entire game, the entire day. Just if we could've gotten one out there it would've changed the game completely. That one's completely on me and no one else in here."
While the youngster acknowledged his costly mistake, Brigham's struggles on the mound didn't help make up for it, as the reliver explained what happened on the hit-by-pitches.
"I was trying to go in on [Kyle] Schwarber with the cutter and I yanked it a little bit and it caught his knee there," Brigham said. "And then I was trying to throw a slider to [Trea] Turner, just backed it up a little bit."
Brigham also took accountability for not performing in the clutch situation, knowing that he should've been more aggressive on the mound to preserve New York's lead.
"I was just going out there to compete my butt off and just try to put my best stuff out there and hope I can get it done and today I didn't," Brigham said.
He added: "Yeah, it's definitely a tough situation. Three run game, bases loaded, you don't want to give up the big one so you're not pitching to the big parts of the plate. At the end of the day you still got to go after them and attack them and not end up walking or hitting guys in as I did."
