Wednesday, April 06, 2005
Reds 9, Mets 5
This is not quite the way this season was expected to go. The Mets are now 0-2 with the soft underbelly of their starting rotation about to take to the mound in the next three days. Of course, if this is the way the top of the rotation is going to pitch, I'm not sure how we're supposed to tell the difference. Tom Glavine didn't even make it through four innings tonight, allowing five runs on nine hits and three walks while striking out just two in three and two-thirds. Of course, all five of the runs could have been avoided had reasonable pitches been called inning-ending third strikes in the first and fourth innings. Each of the first four runs was driven in on a single immediately following an apparently blown ball call. It may be something like cosmic justice that the man who carried his own personal strike zone with him throughout the nineties is now getting squeezed, but I don't see how it's particularly fair or just to Mets' fans, who've been on the wrong side of these strike zone shenanigans the whole time.
Anyway, the bullpen followed Glavine adequately for a while, with Mike Matthews, Manny Aybar and Dae-Sung Koo managing to escape jams, of their own making in the case of the last two. And Roberto Hernandez pitched a dominant inning and one-third, striking out the side in the seventh. But Mike DeJean had an awful eighth, culminating in a grand slam from legendary power threat Joe Randa. So the Mets used five relief pitchers the night before Kazuhisa Ishii is pitching in a game that starts at 12:30 in the afternoon. This week could get ugly in a hurry.
The offense did have another solid day, scoring those five runs on 12 hits, although, as on Monday, they only drew two walks on the day. David Wright and Doug Mientkiewicz each homered for the first time this season. Victor Diaz had three singles starting in right field to go along with at least one defensive misadventure.
Tomorrow, Ishii (13-8, 4.71 last year) tries to prevent a freefall against Aaron Harang (10-9, 4.86) and the Reds. ¶ joe | 11:14 PM |
This is not quite the way this season was expected to go. The Mets are now 0-2 with the soft underbelly of their starting rotation about to take to the mound in the next three days. Of course, if this is the way the top of the rotation is going to pitch, I'm not sure how we're supposed to tell the difference. Tom Glavine didn't even make it through four innings tonight, allowing five runs on nine hits and three walks while striking out just two in three and two-thirds. Of course, all five of the runs could have been avoided had reasonable pitches been called inning-ending third strikes in the first and fourth innings. Each of the first four runs was driven in on a single immediately following an apparently blown ball call. It may be something like cosmic justice that the man who carried his own personal strike zone with him throughout the nineties is now getting squeezed, but I don't see how it's particularly fair or just to Mets' fans, who've been on the wrong side of these strike zone shenanigans the whole time.
Anyway, the bullpen followed Glavine adequately for a while, with Mike Matthews, Manny Aybar and Dae-Sung Koo managing to escape jams, of their own making in the case of the last two. And Roberto Hernandez pitched a dominant inning and one-third, striking out the side in the seventh. But Mike DeJean had an awful eighth, culminating in a grand slam from legendary power threat Joe Randa. So the Mets used five relief pitchers the night before Kazuhisa Ishii is pitching in a game that starts at 12:30 in the afternoon. This week could get ugly in a hurry.
The offense did have another solid day, scoring those five runs on 12 hits, although, as on Monday, they only drew two walks on the day. David Wright and Doug Mientkiewicz each homered for the first time this season. Victor Diaz had three singles starting in right field to go along with at least one defensive misadventure.
Tomorrow, Ishii (13-8, 4.71 last year) tries to prevent a freefall against Aaron Harang (10-9, 4.86) and the Reds. ¶ joe | 11:14 PM |
