What was up with last night's line-up? We send our top gun (save the grumblings for a minute) against the reigning NL Cy Young champ and the hottest team in baseball and how do we respond? By loading the order with pure rubbish--Franco, Newhan, Johnson. Webb had to be drooling. Between the additions and some of our struggling regulars it looked like a buffet of lameness. I'm kinda surprised we didn't get no-hit last night.
Now I understand that injuries forced Willie's hand into handing in that card with a straight face, but c'mon! If our roster is that depleted let's put a few guys on the 15 day DL and get some damn reinforcements. Could you imagine if last night had been a 14-inning affair? Granted, that would have been impossible because a bunch of blind, one-armed howler monkeys would have scored before the Mets could muster a run in extras, but you get the point.
Maine was awesome last night. One bad pitch (which he seems to do each start, even when on fire--guess that's the price of challenging hitters) but otherwise 7K's, 5 hits, 0 BB's in 6 innings. I'm pleased as punch with that.
Of course then Willie has to bring in Mota and all goes to the outhouse. Why does everyone love this guy and see him as a bullpen savior? It's become obvious that his success was due to framapaloocical enhancements so let's stop throwing him out there every chance possible.
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3 comments:
DC,
I watched all 6 of Maine's innings, and his command went from great to not-so-great. It was a perfectly good outing, one that normally should get you a "W", but compare it to Webb's for the difference between a very strong outing and a great outing: and it's not about the opposing line up, Webb was hitting all his spots and that sinker is just baffling. Is a free agent any time soon?
In the first inning, Maine was having trouble hitting spots and luckily D-Backs were chasing sliders in the dirt and off the plate. When he gave up the runs in the 5th, he made two mistakes: the 2-strike pitch that turned into the double was supposed to be a 2-seamer that started off the plate outside and came back to catch the black. Instead, he left it middle-in, thigh high. The HR was also a mistake. Hey, you're not going to make every pitch, but the double was too bad, b/c he had put on a clinic with the first few pitches in the sequence and then took a chance despite being ahead in the count.
That said, this start was another indication of how good Maine's stuff is. Hitters just look baffled. For the past month, John hasn't been at his best and hitters still look terrible at times: the 2-seamer has so much late movement that a lot of guys are just looking for walks, waiving hopelessly, or just trying to foul off pitches waiting for a mistake. John's also showing a great pit bull mentality, and doesn't get down when he issues a BB or makes a mistake like in the 5th. He just keeps battling through. The slider also seems to be getting better with each outing.
I also consider Maine our #1 right now in the sense that he's the one guy I'd like to have out there against a good opposing lineup. Less likely to melt down than Perez (although Ollie's starting to build a good track record, he has that nutty factor that always makes me think there's going to be a reversal), and I also prefer Maine to Perez b/c his fastball is out pitch instead of his slider. Duque's great but can I count on him not to be hurt or tell Willie "I'm done" after 85 pitches? Glavine's going to bring everything he has and be his usualy unflappable self, but he just doesn't have a wicked 92 MPH 2 seam fastball.
Maine's stuff is good enough (particularly that late rising fastball, that's vicious!) that if he makes no changes to the mental part of his game, he'll remain at least a very good pitcher. However, if Maine wants to become a truly great pitcher (and I think he has the stuff to do that), he will need to let a little more "Glavine" rub off on him.
Specifically, he needs to back off on directly challenging hitters just a bit in certain situations. Too often (last year and this year) he ends up dealing up a HR. I don't think this is a major change - just a minor one, situation dependent. But he will need to make this adjustment to become consistently dominant.
As for our offense, let's just face facts - we suck against good pitching. Period. This team has only amassed runs in situations where the other team either has lousy pitching or ridiculous fielding meltdowns. This is not a lineup that makes the necessary situational adjustments inning-to-inning or even pitch-to-pitch, and we pay the price. I think we will pay the price in the playoffs when facing solid rotations, where we will likely lose in the first round unless pedro, glavine, and duque come up with three near shutouts.
One other thing: is there any other player you hear whining more often than Beltran that he is always playing "injured"?
Beltran said playing through pain is nothing new to him. He said he hasn't been 100 percent since his first full season in 1999, and he noted that he had already been suffering tendinitis in his knee. You know what? Either you are for some reason always more injured than the average player (and if so, why??), OR you are just always whining about the same level of discomfort that every other major leaguer plays through. Quit whining.
Green and Alou are both on the DL, no? I thought that Beltran and Wright are both day-to-day and could be in the lineup today.
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