igt 18/4: zambrano & the d team vs los bravos

[Frayed Knot]

Leiter's actually pretty good (IMO) on the mike - at least for a neophyte. He was good in the playoff games he did a year or two back.

But here's the thing, the Yank pub machine is trying to pass him off as if he has some great Yanqui pedigree on account of him starting there (late '80s) and ending there (late '05). But do they realize that he has all of ELEVEN wins as a NYY!!! His MFY career was so brief and interrupted that last year was his winning-est year in pinstripes (tied actually with one other year at 4).
He's also like the 15th color analyst they have over there in some sort of seemingly random rotation: Murcer, Singleton, Kaat, O'Neill, and probably some others I can't think of right now. Mostly he seems to be appearing at the expense of Kaat who's my fave over there. I think Kaat's either being pushed out or cutting back on his own (I've read both).

[metirish]

Agreed about Kaat, perhaps he tells the truth and the Boss doesn't like that, I find him to be very good, Singleton is a nightmare though, O'Neill is too pally with the guys it seems to me, can't listen to him.

[Willets Point]

Bummer. This could be a turning point. The Manchurian Brave pitches tomorrow, then it's a west coast swing, and a trip to the House of Horrors. The '06 Mets could be brought down to earth in a hurry. Well, it was fun while it lasted.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Big positive afterthoughts out of Feliciano and Julio, though, huh?

It's something, though Feliciano is now burned.

Any word on Giles? These are two shorthanded teams right now.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Oh, and Gwreck, it's this guy --- biggest career collar in Met history.

[Gwreck]

Edgy DC wrote: Oh, and Gwreck, it's this guy --- biggest career collar in Met history.

Thanks. Forgot about his Mets career. Mercifully, I don't think Valentin will get a chance to catch him.

[nymr83]

Edgy DC wrote: Oh, and Gwreck, it's this guy --- biggest career collar in Met history.

has there ever been a worse hitter with 4760 career at-bats?

[Guest Rotblatt]

Home plate ump had a huge strike zone last night. He was pretty consistent with it, but it definitely helped Atlanta more, since Davies figured it out pretty early and seems to have a pretty good idea of where he's putting the ball. Zambrano, meanwhile, seemed to hung up on trying to put the ball over the plate. Normally, not a bad thing with his stuff, but it looked like batting practice out there.

Zambrano's stuff didn't look that bad to me, although his velocity seemed a bit down. He just seemed to miss in the zone a lot. Like I said in a previous thread, it seems like Zambrano's game plan is to sacrifice stuff in order to get the ball over the plate, and frankly, it doesn't seem to be working for him.

I would've liked to see him make more adjustments yesterday. If his plan had been to go out there and throw it over the plate while sacrificing some movement/velocity, he should have seen that they were swinging early and often and thrown off the plate more.

Anyway, brutal game. Delgado was the recepient of some bad calls and didn't seem able to move past it. Wright's struggling. He's still going the other way when he's got two strikes but is getting under the ball. Reyes seems to be getting under the ball as well, though he's still having pretty good at bats--working the counts a bit and not swinging much at bad pitches. I'm not worried long term about any of them, but with those three struggling and Beltran & Floyd out, we're going to have a hard time scoring runs.

Valentin looks done. Chavez looks like a defensive replacement. Woody looked pretty good--I wouldn't mind penciling him in there until we have both Floyd & Beltran back in the lineup.

Speaking of which, it's time for Willie to put someone on the DL if Beltran can't play today. Put him on the 15-day DL and call up Diaz. Diaz can play left until Cliff comes back, then he can move to right and Nady can move to center.

We'd have Beltran back on May 1. Not ideal, sure, but if he's not going to be able to play for another week, we're going to need to play a legitimate outfielder.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Delgado really seemed like he wanted to unload on the ump and get tossed, but that would have left Wright and Nady carrying all the water. As it was, he was driven to distraction by the bad calls and pretty lost up there.

Does Shea still have a Questec machine? Hopefully this ump gets a bad report card.

[Centerfield]

Couple of thoughts....

I don't see the point of demoting Diaz for Feliciano if all you're doing to use him for is 3 innings in a blowout.

I hate Andruw Jones. I'd like to see him get a fastball right on that smug grin of his.

Can you imagine Endy Chavez, Anderson Hernandez and Jose Reyes going to a bar and trying to convince people that they are professional athletes?

[metirish]

]Does Shea still have a Questec machine? Hopefully this ump gets a bad report card.

My guess is that it does, it used to anyway, Fran always made sure to mention that any time there were questionable calls, and especially when Glavine pitched.

[Guest ABG]

Centerfield wrote: Couple of thoughts.... I don't see the point of demoting Diaz for Feliciano if all you're doing to use him for is 3 innings in a blowout. I hate Andruw Jones. I'd like to see him get a fastball right on that smug grin of his. Can you imagine Endy Chavez, Anderson Hernandez and Jose Reyes going to a bar and trying to convince people that they are professional athletes?

In order:

Disagree somewhat. There needs to be some way for the bullpen to avoid getting burnt out early.

Couldn't agree more.

Agree somewhat.

[Guest Edgy DC]

]I don't see the point of demoting Diaz for Feliciano if all you're doing to use him for is 3 innings in a blowout.

Well part of it was to get another guy up there to spare the workload of better pitchers. I stll would have given him two innings and Julio two (if he could get throught two). Once Felicano got through the lineup once they seemed ready for him.

But, on the other hand, Julio got to finish on a positive, which he may not have done if they asked for too much of him.

I have to say that I like the way Willie's handling the Julio situation a lot. If the fans want to act adversarial, let them, but he's not going to hide his pitcher and only use him on the road. Heck with them, he's got a job to do, and yielding to bloodthirsty meatheads isn't part of it.