Maine Leaves Hurt, and Bull-Pen Blows Up

What started out as a good outing soon left a bad taste in my mouth. John Maine was pitching a good game and breezed through the 1st 4 innings, then something happened in the 5th inning.

Before recording the 1st out of the inning, all hell broke lose with the trainers and coaching staff running out to the mound and surrounding John. They all were worried about something. After throwing a couple of pitches to the catcher, they left and John went back to pitching. He threw one pitch, and the baseball was promptly parked in the seats in right field. After Nolasco's long fly ball to Chavez, that was the end of John's night. Come to find out later, John has had a stiff shoulder for a few weeks now. Dan Warthen and Jerry were worried about John hurting something else because he started changing his delivery during the game. They don't seem to think there is anything major going on, they were just being careful. Somehow I bet Guinness is jumping up and down celebrating this latest set back for John. He's bound and determined to make John a reliever and I'm sure he'll say this proves something. The only thing it proves to me is that John isn't a wimp, and wanted to pitch and stay in the game because he knew it was important. John has proven to have a bulldog personality and sometimes that isn't good for him. I heard that he was barking at Warthen about being pulled. I like that fight in players, but sometimes it's better to error on the side of caution.

If that wasn't bad enough, the bull-pen blew up again. Muniz did ok but surrendered the lead and left after 1.2 innings and a tied game. Pedro got out of the 6th inning, Sanchez made it thru the 7th inning, then Smith and Schoeneweis promptly gave up 5 runs in the 8th and the game was over. The Mets never threatened to score any runs and the Marlins pen held the lead. Now the Mets are only .5 games ahead of the Phillies, and 1 game ahead of the Fish.

Ollie goes tonight and hopes to stop the bleeding and extend the Mets lead in the division. No one ever said beating the Marlins would be easy, but it needs to be done. They may have great HR hitting abilities, but the Mets should be able to exploit their pitching. If the Mets bull-pen doesn't improve, it will be the Mets pitching that gets exploited not the Marlins.