Tuesday, July 29, 2003
Brewers 4, Mets 2
The early months of the 2003 season were heady days in Flushing. There was a new manager and a new ace in town. Jeromy Burnitz was erasing memories of his dreadful 2002. Mike Piazza's groin was in good shape, as was his bat. Jae Weong Seo was still known as Jae Seo and was still surprising people by emerging as a Rookie of the Year candidate. He wasn't racking up a big win total or even big strikeout totals, and he was giving up an unhealthy number of hits more often than not. But he gave up few runs and even fewer walks and eventually he started getting some support from his offense and his bullpen and got some wins.
In the last couple of months, his strikeout numbers have gone up. After striking out 4.4 per nine innings in April and 4.2 in May, he got up to 5.9 in June and after tonight's 5 Ks in seven innings, he's at 6.6 per nine for the month of July. But as the strikeouts started to come, the walks began to follow. After walking four tonight, he's given up 3.4 per nine in July after just 0.3, 2.5 and 2.1 in the previous three months. And after cutting down on the hits a bit in the last two months, giving up just 7.4 and 9.0 per nine innings in May and June, respectively, after giving up 12.4 per nine in April, he's back up to 11.2 for July.
The upshot of all this is that he's giving up more runs and accruing losses in a hurry nowadays. After posting an ERA around three in each of the first three months, he's up to 6.61 for July and hasn't won since seven starts ago, picking up five Ls in the meantime.
But tonight he managed to keep the runs off of the board, giving up just a pair of runs on those five hits, four walks and five strikeouts. But the depleted Met offense was only able to match that total and it was left to the New York bullpen to hold off the Brewers. Of course that didn't go well asDavid Weathers loaded the bases and John Franco gave up a single to put the Brewers on top for good.
Tomorrow, Tom Glavine (6-11, 5.15) goes for his first home win since April against Ben Sheets (9-7, 3.87) for the Brewers. Who'd've guessed before the season that Ben Sheets would be outpitching Tom Glavine at the end of July? ¶ joe | 1:00 AM |
The early months of the 2003 season were heady days in Flushing. There was a new manager and a new ace in town. Jeromy Burnitz was erasing memories of his dreadful 2002. Mike Piazza's groin was in good shape, as was his bat. Jae Weong Seo was still known as Jae Seo and was still surprising people by emerging as a Rookie of the Year candidate. He wasn't racking up a big win total or even big strikeout totals, and he was giving up an unhealthy number of hits more often than not. But he gave up few runs and even fewer walks and eventually he started getting some support from his offense and his bullpen and got some wins.
In the last couple of months, his strikeout numbers have gone up. After striking out 4.4 per nine innings in April and 4.2 in May, he got up to 5.9 in June and after tonight's 5 Ks in seven innings, he's at 6.6 per nine for the month of July. But as the strikeouts started to come, the walks began to follow. After walking four tonight, he's given up 3.4 per nine in July after just 0.3, 2.5 and 2.1 in the previous three months. And after cutting down on the hits a bit in the last two months, giving up just 7.4 and 9.0 per nine innings in May and June, respectively, after giving up 12.4 per nine in April, he's back up to 11.2 for July.
The upshot of all this is that he's giving up more runs and accruing losses in a hurry nowadays. After posting an ERA around three in each of the first three months, he's up to 6.61 for July and hasn't won since seven starts ago, picking up five Ls in the meantime.
But tonight he managed to keep the runs off of the board, giving up just a pair of runs on those five hits, four walks and five strikeouts. But the depleted Met offense was only able to match that total and it was left to the New York bullpen to hold off the Brewers. Of course that didn't go well asDavid Weathers loaded the bases and John Franco gave up a single to put the Brewers on top for good.
Tomorrow, Tom Glavine (6-11, 5.15) goes for his first home win since April against Ben Sheets (9-7, 3.87) for the Brewers. Who'd've guessed before the season that Ben Sheets would be outpitching Tom Glavine at the end of July? ¶ joe | 1:00 AM |
