Mickey Callaway's life philosophy has not wavered, not for a moment. There's no need to lose your cool, even when things are disastrously bad. Process and consistency are the keys to eventual success. And failure can be the greatest teacher.
The problem, of course, is that even if all these things are true, the Mets are currently going through this tempest in a tailspin. The window for meaningful baseball is rapidly closing _ even Callaway admitted Monday that they probably have about two weeks to turn things around. And the Mets have failed so much, they could earn a Ph.D. with everything they must have learned on the subject.
But for all that, Callaway does not budge, and he hammered that home Monday, before the Mets were set to take on the Pirates in an attempt to break a six-game losing streak. He even found a bright side in Sunday's brutal "bullpen" game adding that he would do it again _ a testament, at least, to his Zen-like nature.
"Other than seven homers, we did OK," he said, with a slight chuckle that indicated he understood the irony. "I think that the game plan was to try to keep us in the game and give us a chance to win if we didn't have a starter and those guys did that."
But despite his insistence that his players are playing the game the right way, baseball is a game of numbers and, unfortunately for the Mets, the most significant number is the 44 loses they carried into Monday. From an 11-1 start, they are now among the worst teams in baseball. But Callaway said there was a method to his mildness.
"I hate losing, more than anybody," he said when asked how he can remain so calm when everything around him falls to pieces.
"I understand that it takes more of an even-keel manner to make sure we get to where we want to get as an organization at some point. It's not just about today. The even-keel manner in which all of our players I feel have shown _ obviously they get frustrated sometimes, but they've done a good job of coming to play every day _ is something that's important to us as an organization moving forward, not just, 'Oh, he's mad today.' That doesn't tend to get you out of a slump or get your teammates more on board with you or get more buy-in from players. It's the day-to-day grind and doing the things the right way that's going to change what we're doing."
While players certainly enjoy his consistent demeanor, fans have been less forgiving. Social media is already abuzz with calls to fire both Callaway and general manager Sandy Alderson, and injuries have made it increasingly difficult to field a competitive team.
"I was a really terrible player, so I've been through this before," Callaway said laughing. "It's easy to [keep my cool] because I value it so much. I think it's important ... I think that you're always learning every day, but this has been probably the best learning experience for our team than any other stretch that we're probably going to have. It's been tough. We've learned a lot about each other. I think that we're going to end up being a better group of people and a better team because we went through this stretch but we've all definitely learned a ton."
The truth is, though, despite all the learning, there is a very real deadline looming. Alderson said Friday that the team realistically has two to three weeks with which to shift themselves from sellers to buyers. There's every possibility that come the trade deadline on July 31, a number of players will be using their hard-earned knowledge with another, more competitive team.
"We just have to keep on doing what we do," Callaway said. "The next two weeks probably does need to decide what direction we're going in, but us in the clubhouse can't really concern ourselves with that and just go out there and try to win games every night. ... As hard as it's been we have to understand that this is something that we can benefit from in the long run. No matter how many times you fail, you can learn from it. I think our guys understand that."
