In the first, Maine bounced his seventh pitch, allowed singles to Scott Spiezio and Albert Pujols, then walked Juan Encarnacion. As grumbles emanated, Maine thought back to what his catcher, Paul Lo Duca, had said in a visit to the mound.
"He gave me a little speech," Maine said. "It was what I needed. It's secret, so no one is going to know except us two."
That much invective, huh?
"Not R-rated," Maine said.
"The old college ‘Go get ‘em,' " Lo Duca said.
Get 'em Maine did. He cruised through the second inning, worked out of two walks in the third by striking out Encarnacion, shook off another walk in the fourth, finished the fifth by striking out Pujols on a slider and left with one on and one out in the sixth, his straggler retired on a Rolen double-play ball, his final line.
"Johnny, to me, is not scared," Lo Duca said. "He wants to be out there, and I just wanted to let him know that [we], as a team, want him out there. We feel, and I told him, 'Just do your job, and we're going to win this ballgame for you.' I think we saw the maturation of a kid that's going to be a good pitcher, and you'll see him for a long time. He grew a lot tonight, and this is a step forward for his career."
Thursday, October 19, 2006
The Duke of Flushing
This is why the guy is the team leader. From espn.com:
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Yeah, I saw this at the start of the game last night. Right before the first pitch Lo Duca marched out to the mound and spoke to him for about a minute. I figured he was saying something to get him confident and ready to go.
I notice that LaRussa seems to be trying to screw with the minds of our players. Last night he came out after Maine threw a ball to Carpenter to make count go from 2-2 to 3-2, arguing that he thought it was ball 4, not 3. Bullcrap you thought it was ball 4. Clearly he was just trying to get into Maine's head and have him throw a true ball 4 to walk their pitcher. Fortunately Maine wasn't rattled and calmly got Carpenter out. And the night before that I don't remember the specifics now but I think he came out right before Beltran was batting to discuss something bogus with the umps and try to freeze Beltran. Tony, try to win the game on the field.
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