Mets Manager Terry Collins: ‘Heat is on the home team’ to win

The Dodgers made it a point to win the home-field advantage from the Mets in the first round of the playoffs.

And now it looks like a big mistake?

Sleeping in your own beds and playing in your home ballpark hasn’t proved any great advantage this far in the 2015 postseason.

At the moment Mets Manager Terry Collins sat down for his pregame news conference Friday, home teams had started the postseason 0-5 (the Royals later won at home).

What gives?

Collins has a theory.

“I really don’t have all the answers, but I’ve talked to enough managers that tell me a lot of it when you start out at home, the pressure’s on you,” Collins said. “There’s that added thing. You’re the guys who are supposed to win.”

The Dodgers went 55-26 at home this season and were determined to capture the home-field advantage. They won their last four consecutive games to win it from the Mets.

They hope it means something, and if not only in a positive vein for them, in a possibly negative one for a mostly young Mets team.

Early in the postseason, however, it just hasn’t worked out that way.

“The visitors just go in more relaxed,” Collins said. “I told the guys yesterday, look, we’ve just got to play our game. We play good on the road. Let’s not change anything, and no matter what happens, we’re going to still go back to New York and we hopefully can salvage something here and go back and get the advantage.

“But I just think it’s the fact that the heat is on the home team for me.”

Follow Steve Dilbeck on Twitter @SteveDilbeck