Wednesday, June 04, 2008

The Main Event

People will say that Pedro Martinez has this "sense of moment" which makes starts that are ordinary starts for everyone else "events" for Pedro Martinez.

But when Pedro makes such few precious starts, of course they're events. Hopefully one day we'll get to the point where we can expect Petey to go every five days instead of having his three starts a month be events like when the amusement park used to come to the Shea Stadium parking lot during the west coast road trip and it was a big deal because it wouldn't stay very long. That's what Petey's become.

But in the scale of Pedro Martinez Returns From Injury, this one was damn good. Three runs in five innings would have been fine. But Willie Randolph needed a sixth inning ... probably because Oliver Perez caused the bullpen to go on overload on Monday. And Petey went out and gutted one more out in cool weather after two months off.

And I for one hope that Oliver Perez took note of that. Maybe seeing a pitcher battle with his own eyes will get through his head more than Billy Wagner talking about battling can ever do.

And two hits to boot? Should we call him Micah Martinez?

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

he's the best.

Anonymous said...

I love Pedro. Loved him when he was an Expo, loved him when he was on the Sox. I just love what he brings to the field, and even more, the excitement that he follows him. Like you said, it's always an event - you can't help but get a little fired up with Pedro on the mound.

TW said...

Is four strong months too much to ask?, because if he can give us that we'll wrap the division by September 17th.

As frail as Pedro has been over the past two years the fact is that he is a man among men in this game, his presence in the dugout and clubhouse is key. His presence on the mound every five days is, in today's game, unmatched.

Interesting that you chose the Wagner link, that's Perez belongs and I wish I was the driver.

Rickey said...

You know what Rickey finds to be just terrific? The fact that ESPN actually keeps a statistic for Pedro's record on his returns from DL stints. According to the fuckwits in Bristol, he's 3-0 on DL stints longer than 30 days.

...that having been said, Rickey's cautiously optimistic after last night.

Anonymous said...

Those pics of Petey's hit make me worry about his hammy. Go easy on those strides Petey!

Great outing - can't believe he went 6, especially after a shaky 5th. He's a gamer.

Keith has got to stop starting sentences with "For all you kids out there . . ." What is this, Howdy Dooty?

Anonymous said...

I thought it was very funny when Keith drew the outline of Pedro's bent leg during his second hit and made the comment that this is NOT the way to do it.

The Metmaster said...

Gotta love the fact that Joba laid a rather large egg in the Bronx last night. The YES hype machine was in "Hyper-drive" before the game. Did you see one of his post game quotes? "I always go long counts to batters". Wow. Not what you want with a starter unless you're prepared for a 140-150 pitch count every time out.

katherine said...

I hate to sound like a crabby old geezer, but if we had "only" scored 5 runs off of Zito, instead of 9, we would, instead of celebrating Pedro's return, be moaning and groaning over yet another horribly depressing late inning loss to a terrible team and a bad pitcher.

Anonymous said...

If the Mets had only scored five and not nine runs off Zito, Wagner would have entered the game in the ninth at the beginning of the inning and not Schoenweis, and likely would not have walked the first two batters and served up a meatball to the next one to hit for a 3-run HR.

TW said...

exactly