Well it wasn't the result we as Mets fans were hoping for. But then again it's hard to be successful when the Umpires are incompetent. They blew a call in the field that everyone but them in the stadium knew wasn't an out. And the home plate Umpire had a strike zone the size of a postage stamp. I saw John throw strike after strike, and the ump called them balls. The last I knew that white thing on the ground is the plate, and if the ball goes over it while between knee high and belt high, it's a strike. Well not yesterday.
John was throwing the ball consistently in the upper 90's and that isn't a good thing. I saw 97 MPH more than once, he normally throws around 93 mph. I guess the extra day and the hype around playing the Braves had John really hopping the ball. And Guinness those 87 mph pitches were SLIDERS, not CHANGE-UPS. John throws 3 pitches, and 87 in about normal for a slider. He was behind in the count so often, that he threw mostly fastballs while trying to find the umps' strike zone. A tight strike zone doesn't effect someone like Hudson. He's a ground ball pitcher, not a fly ball strikeout pitcher. In games when John gets squeezed at the plate, he struggles with good hitters. And the Braves have a lot of good hitters. If any fly ball pitcher is forced to throw over the middle of the plate, the results generally are not good.
As bad as John pitched, the offense and bull-pen were worse. John only gave up 4 runs, and most days that should give your team a chance to win. The bull-pen gave up 7 runs, and the offense couldn't get a hit when needed. This game had none of the things needed to win a game. It had no timely hitting, the starting pitching was not good, and the bull-pen stunk up the place. Lets hope things change today. David hit into double plays and Reyes wasn't very good today either. I hope they decide to actually decide to show up today and contribute to the game. There is something about Turner Field that always causes trouble for the Mets early in the year. I believe they lost 5 of the 1st 6 games there last year. Lets all hope that Santana doesn't have the same bad luck as Maine did Saturday.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
If those pitches were sliders, they were the worst sliders in baseball. They never broke and went straight down the plate.
And I disagree with you that John was throwing that many strikes and most umpires won't give you the call even if it is over the plate if you missed your target. Regardless, the reason I said that John is too predictable is that every hitter knows that a high fastball is coming with 2 strikes. So there is no need to swing at it...
Post a Comment