Is there drama in the Mets locker room?: Marc Malusis

Terry Collins needs to relax.

Going into the Sunday afternoon affair in Cleveland, the Mets are a 4-6 baseball team. But all hope is not lost.

The long baseball season is a marathon, not a sprint. Nothing has been or will be decided this early in the season.

I am not concerned by the Mets’ start in any way, shape of form. However, I do get concerned if Terry is walking around that clubhouse as tight and tense as he appears to be.

Following last Wednesday’s 2-1 victory over the Marlins, one the manager said the team “had to win,” and he would go on to say “I’m not worried about the confidence. I’m worried about … the perception is that there’s no energy here. Which is completely not true. That we’re not prepared or we’re over confident or we’re not taking things seriously. I heard that last night and it made me sick to my stomach. That people actually think that this team — that accomplished what they did last year — would have any semblance of that type of makeup.”

This comment would concern me if I were running the Mets. Being too intense and too tight can certainly rub off on a team and that would certainly have a negative impact now and over the duration of the regular season.

What he did last Wednesday out at Citi Field just made no sense. In all honesty, he seemed to be chasing ghosts. To be trying to make the media the enemy in Game 8 would lead me to believe there is an issue in the Mets clubhouse.

I do not know that, but why would Collins get as angry as he did and feel the need to spout off the way that he did. If Collins is reacting to what is said on TV, in the newspaper or on the radio, than Collins is already in trouble. He can’t listen to any of us. It is sure to get you fired, and where exactly was this overwhelming criticism of his team?

Certainly, they were not hitting at that point and ultimately were not off to a good start in the win-loss column. But to be talking about Game 8 of the regular season against the Marlins as a must-win situation in order to send a message to those that have been critical and for the fan base is just off-base and wrong. You will not make it. You will ultimately lose your team over the course of the 162 game season.

This is not the playoffs and there are no must-wins, unless you don’t have a win, in the month of April. Heck, it was Terry Collins last Tuesday night that admonished the media after yet another loss, that made reference to the baseball season being a “marathon.”

Why the overreaction? Why now? Is there internal pressure that we do not know about?

Who knows? I have always been a supporter of Collins as the Mets struggled to find wins. He was given a bad hand and this was his last chance to manage on the major league level and I wanted Collins to have an opportunity to manage a team that had expectations to win.

You have to remember, it did not end well for Collins in his two previous stops as a major league manager with both the Astros and Angels. In both places, he might have been too intense for the players’ liking. Before this season, Collins was a bridge guy. Wait for bad contracts to expire. Wait for young players to develop. Wait for young pitchers to develop and for the most part get ready to do a lot of losing. This year, that all changed.

The Mets are a contender in the National League and have expectations to win a World Series for the first time since 1986. Collins needs to relax for himself, for the team and for the fans.