What I Saw Last Night - 30 APR 07 Mets-Marlins

Can’t anybody here catch the ball?

The Mets have played very good defense so far this season.  Last night, not so much.  While I am disgusted at the thought of having Chan Ho Park start a game, he really didn’t pitch that poorly.  That sounds like crazy-talk when you consider that he went four IP, allowing seven earned runs, with lots of baserunners, but if you saw what I saw, you might not think so.  Park started the game masterfully - he sat down the first eight Marlin hitters in order, and with very little trouble.  He really had tied up Miguel Cabrera, striking him out to end the first inning.  The same with Joe Borchard to end the second.  It all started to come unravelled when the Fish pitcher Olsen singled during an at-bat where Park began to lose the strike zone, and grooved one down the mmiddle.  Yes, batting pitchers still swing and miss that, or ground it weakly to second very very often, but Olsen squarely sent it up the middle.

Somehow allowing a single to the pitcher got in Park’s head.  I don’t know if he was just terribly upset with himself for allowing a hit to a pitcher or what, but he threw the next eight pitches in a manner that Vlad Guerrero wouldn’t be tempted to swing at, walking Hanley Ramirez and Dan Uggla with very little fanfare.  That brought Cabrera to the plate with two outs and the bases juiced.  Wincing, I convinced myself , as did Willie Randolph and Rick Peterson, that the performance in the first inning, when Park did a number on Miggy, was going to be indicative of how Park would do in this matchup. 

We were all three correct.  Park settled down a bit and threw a nice strike or two and got Cabrera to hit a soft easy liner to second base.

Then Wilie, Rick and I remembered that Jose Valentin was on the DL and Damion Easley was standing out there.  Easley took a step to his right, jumped a little (and probably a little more than was necessary) and the ball hit him right in the center of the glove.  The ball then proceeded to bounce out of his glove and roll about twenty feet into centerfield, while Olsen scored and Ramirez hustled home from second.  Wow, I thought, two runs on an out to second base.  But I felt better about how Park had worked Cabrera and gotten an “out”, and those runs wouldn’t be earned anyway.  Lo and behold, the dropped liner was scored a hit.  I don’t know who the Mets scorer is, but he needs to review the decision-making flowchart.  If the play could be made with ordinary effort, it should be scored an error.  Oh, this play could have been, and would have been, made by every second baseman at least 90% of the time - including Easley, and thus it should be scored as an error. 

So Mike Jacobs is up next with two men on.  Park throws a nice pitch low and away that Jacobs pops up into centerfield.  Back goes Jose Reyes, in comes Carlos Beltran; back goes Jose Reyes, in comes Carlos Beltran; back goes Jose Reyes, in comes Carlos Beltran.  Reyes calls for the ball, Beltran pulls up and the ball drops in between.  Now, there are Texas League hits that bloop into no-man’s land.  That’s not what this was.  This was merely the wrong player calling for the ball, and moreover a player not calling for the ball and the ball plopped right down - for a double.  Not an error, a double, scoring Uggla and moving the runners to second and third.  That’s three runs in, and the last two balls in play were outs 95% of the time.  The only leaves an appropriate actual Texas League bloop to right to score those two runs, and the score was 5-0.  All runs were scored as earned.

Park gave up two home runs the next inning - Amezega and Ramirez, two of the bigger home run hitters in the majors the next inning, and was done after four. 

Okay, Park did get himself into trouble for losing the strike zone, and he did give up two big home runs, but those five runs in the third should never have scored.  There are Met fans reading Park’s line this morning and wondering why a guy with a 7+ ERA in AAA got the start to begin with (I wonder that myself), but Park didn’t get any help there.  If Easley catches that ball, or if Beltran properly takes charge and takes Jacobs’ pop-up, the Mets are still in good shape.  Heck, they did score six runs, despite leaving runners on second and third in the first and third innings.  David Wright and Carlos Delgado really need to get off the bench. 

Was I upset at the game?  Sure was.  Am I panicking about it?  No, I’m not.  Giving away games is never a good idea, even if you are sitting with one of the best records in the game with your four and five hitters producing zilch.

So what did I learn?  Maybe Park will be bad, but he shouldn’t be 15.75 ERA bad.