It was a weird, freezing night at Shea as your correspondent with the chattering teeth made his first trip to Flushing in 2006. Pedro Martinez’ first win of the new campaign came on a night when his control left more than a little to be desired (5 walks, Nick Johnston and Jose Guillen each hit by pitches twice), but save for a two-base throwing error and one big mistake to Johnston, Martinez might’ve emerged unscathed.
As it stood, Martinez was able to shut down the Nationals in enough key spots and the Mets received ridiculous offensive production from everyone not named Anderson Hernandez ; it was a bust-out kinda evening for Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran and Delgado. Beltran smacked a mammouth, 415 foot two-run HR to left center in the 7th off Joey Eischen that resulted in a half-hearted curtain call for the Mets’ center-fielder. Clearly, all Beltran needs to do to avoid being booed continuously is hit a home run in every plate appearance.
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a hitter (in this case, Jose Guillen) charge the mound brandishing a bat, be restrained by teammates….and not be ejected. Likewise, it seemed as though last night’s umpiring crew had conferred early in the day and decided that no matter what occurred, Frank Robinson would have to whip it out to get thrown out of the game. Without the benefit of TV close-ups, it is hard to understand how Robbie manages to filibuster for a half-hour before being run.
GC, with TV closeups it was even harder to figure out. It looked, for awhile, as if there could’ve been two grievous throat injuries doled out to umpires that night.
I was at the game too. Very strange, yes. Seemed like when Guillen charged the mound, it was the umpire way more than Lo Duca who was holding him back. (Though the pic above would indicate otherwise.) The guys behind me got pissed and called him Lo Fluka for the rest of the game.
Also, great game by Reyes, but doesn’t it seem like he finds patience and takes pitches only on at-bats when a walk wouldn’t help his cause one bit? And when he’s taking pitches, he’s taking strikes more than balls. Not that this is news…
Chad Bradford threw some straight-up garbage. One didn’t even register on the gun, but another was clocked at 64, I think. Good for him.
I don’t like the Beltran booing, but if this line from today’s Times is accurate, he is a baby:
“a bruised ego for Carlos Beltran, who, after hitting a seventh-inning homer to end an 0-for-9 drought, had to be coaxed out of the dugout by Julio Franco to make a curtain call because he was stung by the fans’ sudden support.”
http://www.nypost.com/sports/mets/64127.htm
You can see the umpire doing Lo Duca’s work there, and also get some good Guillen craziness.
i was also at the game. with all those delays, it seemed like the house ads were getting a lot of extra exposure.
re : delays. Amazing no one at Shea thought it worth mentioning for, I dunno, 15 minutes? that an umpire had been injured, hence the inexplicable delay?
re : Bradford. In the mezz., we were cracking up at a few of his supposedly 60-65 MPH pitches. There was a 62 MPH slider that might’ve been the slowest moving ball I’ve seen in a professional game at any level — even Tim Wakefield was embarrassed. But his release point obviously confuses hitters who haven’t seen him very often, so I suppose the key to Willie’s use of Bradford is to render him inactive starting today.
Beltran definitely wasn’t coming out of the dugout and was definitely talked into doing so by Julio Franco, at least from what I saw on TV. Even if Franco is just another Lenny Harris — a “clubhouse guy” who pinch hits on certain occasions — his gravitas and bilingual skills are clearly a plus. I think Beltran’s curtain call should help things in terms of fan detente, but there’s no reason to have been booing him in the first place.
On SNY (surprisingly glitch-free, with some great Hernandezisms, including an intriguing bit about white russians and his distaste for Kahlua), Bradford was clocking in the 70s and 80s. He looked effective, though. I won’t say Terry Leach-effective, but probably Jeff Innis-effective.
I saw the re-broadcast of the game and I think Beltran had every right to say ‘fuck you, fans.’ It’s not his fault that the Mets payed him waaaay too much money given his lifetime stats. They should be booing the dude up in the GM’s office for that. Some players might be able to handle the hypocrisy of booing the dude who started the year (gasp!) 0-for-9, then demanded a curtain call after the homer (like Derek Jeter last year when he was booed, then cheered at home after a slow start) but Beltran’s more my speed. The lame announcers kept going on and on (until the end of the game) about how valuable Franco was in the dugout, counseling the young Beltran on how to show appreciation to the fans for cheering, but I would’ve been much more amused had Beltran shown his finger to the fans, instead.
Based on the Mets’ bidding against….the Mets?…there’s no way to justify Beltran’s contract as anything other than a desperate stab at credibility by a team being back-paged to fucking death by the Yankees. But at least they overpaid for a relatively young everyday player who is on occasion, a brilliant fielder. the the abuse he was taking as early as monday afternoon just makes the frequently cranky, overstimulated fanbase look dumber than usual. Give the guy until May 1 before burying him, please.
Yeah, the Beltran booing is ridiculous. I guess it is like the Piazza situation in ’98 though, the fans won’t show their love until he starts putting up great numbers.
Last night, Keith said something along the lines of “Pearl Harbor them.” I’m still not sure what he meant by that – I guess a surprise attack? Very odd.
Keith Hernandez needs voice lessons. His commentary is ok, if unspectacular, but that voice…. He reminds me of someone, but I just can’t put my finger on it.
Dick Young?