Results tagged ‘ Pedro Feliciano ’
Miracle Mets Are Distant Memory These Days
Forty years ago this very season the Mets found a way.
They found a way to miraculously defeat the heavily-favored Baltimore Orioles and capture the franchise’s first-ever World Championship in what is arguably the greatest postseason upset in baseball history.
Four decades later, the modern, somewhat hokie, concept of Interleague Play brought the Mets back to Baltimore.
Once again, the Mets found a way – to lose.
As they have all season, the Mets found a way to lose two very winnable games and fall to 33-31 on the season.
Whereas improbable plays from the likes of Tommie Agee, Ron Swoboda, and Al Weiss catapulted the 1969 club to greatness, shoddy managing, base-running blunders, and unthinkable errors have put the 2009 Mets in a tough predicament.
I know pitching (Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman, and Gary Gentry), as it always does, played a huge part in the Amazin’ Mets’ success of 1969 almost as injuries have so heavily contributed to the struggles of the 2009 club.
Remember though that the 1969 Mets didn’t do it on pitching alone. Without the Amazin’ plays and unlikely heroes, the club wouldn’t have even won the pennant.
A similar notion can be adopted here in 2009. The injuries have taken their toll, but even the battered Mets could be at least five games better in the standings had it not been for the inexcusable mental lapses on the part of both the players and their manager.
Wednesday night it was Jerry the Genius feeling the need to remove an effective pitcher (Bobby Parnell) in favor of a lefty-lefty matchup (bringing in Pedro Feliciano). Parnell easily retired the leadoff batter in the seventh inning, but with lefties Markakis and Huff due up Manuel would let Parnell go no further.
I’m glad Manuel went back to this matchup strategy considering it worked so well when left-handed hitting Raul Ibanez Ibanez met southpaw reliever Ken Takahashi in the 10th inning of the Mets’ 6-3 setback to NL East leader Philadelphia last Thursday.
I am aware of, and have previously highlighted, the remarkable work Pedro Feliciano has been doing this season. I like Feliciano so much so that I don’t want our manager to burn him out (he’s appeared in 37 of the club’s 64 games), or at the very least, not bring him into a game unnecessarily when the man he’s replacing is showing no signs of ineffectiveness.
What’s wrong with Parnell, a former starter, eating an extra inning? If he is to be our future closer, or even an eighth inning guy, he will need the ability to retire both right-handed and left-handed hitters.
Thursday night the base running was actually outstanding and the offense came through with a timely hit or two.
There were no dropped pop-ups or managerial miscues.
Still, the Mets found another way to lose as the Francisco Rodriguez legitimately blew a save.
You just can’t explain what’s happening to this team.
The way this season is going I’m beginning to think that the Black Cat is back 40 years later, but this time he’s haunting us.
Mets and Santana Squeezed, But Not Stopped
The Mets completed the sweep of the lowly Nationals Wednesday night. Santana gave us six strong innings (more on that later) and Daniel Murphy’s bat provided the big hits.
Rookie mistakes aside, it was a great victory for the now first-place Mets. Good teams are supposed to beat up on the cellar dwellers like the Nationals, but the Mets actually did it (short-handed nonetheless).
A shadow of what they were a few weeks ago before the injury bug bit big, the Mets started three players (F. Martinez, R. Martinez, and A. Pagan) who weren’t on the Opening Day roster yet managed to take care of business.
They say timing is everything, and how convenient for the Mets to arrive at the weakest part of their 162-game schedule at the same time a number of their big guns are headed to the disabled list. Still, the games have to be won and the Mets are doing just that.
Time to reel off three more against the Marlins who have made a habit of compounding Mets fans misery over the past two Septembers.
Umpire’s Squeeze Play: To say Johan Santana didn’t have his best stuff last night is being somewhat unfair to the Mets ace.
The Mets star southpaw struck out 11 batters, but astonishingly walked six. Don’t panic, Santana is not in danger of turning into Oliver Perez. It was clear that home plate umpire Sam Holbrook was not giving Santana the corners or anything close. It was a pretty poor piece of umpiring to be quite frank.
In fact, I think Holbrook should join Oliver Perez in the minors since neither of them seem to know what a strike looks like.
Still, Santana fought through it, worked around a home run by Adam Dunn (by far the best struck ball in Citi Field’s short history), and the Mets made him a winner.
Mr. Match-up: I couldn’t help but cringe when Manuel lifted an effective Bobby Parnell in favor of southpaw Pedro Feliciano with two outs and one on in the top of the seventh inning.
I have always believed that a pitcher’s performance should trump lefty-lefty matchups, not to mention I’ve seen Feliciano give up two bombs to lefties already this season (one by Raul Ibanez that has yet to land).
Feliciano did his job though, and, for that reason, Manuel made the right move.
Just to prove my point about how overrated the lefty-lefty matchup game is, I’ll let you know that the Nationals homered once in the game. That lone long ball was from left-handed hitting Adam Dunn off Mets left-handed ace Johan Santana.
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