Damn. I really wanted that one. Last night felt like a playoff game, at least the ninth inning did. I knew going in that Danny Kolb was iffy, but not this iffy:
Single
Double-play
Double
Double
Single
Single
At that point he was given the hook in favor of John Foster, who got Cliff Floyd to pop out to end the game. I give Bobby Cox a lot of credit for pulling Kolb there, though it remains to be seen whether that will come back to haunt him in the form of Kolb's self-confidence.
Right now, there was nobody I wanted up there in that situation more than Floyd. He's absolutely destroying the ball right now, and it's unfortunate that he wasn't able to come through last night.
Some thoughts:
- It was nice to see Heath Bell come in and excel in a high-leverage spot last night. Willie had been easing him in, pitching only in blowouts, but last night he was brought in to pitch the eighth and kept the score 4-1. My only knock on him right now is it looks like he needs to figure out an "out" pitch against Major League hitters. He had Marcus Giles down 0-2 and it took him six-or-seven more pitches to strike him out. He needs to throw that slider earlier on and not waste so many pitches.
- Pedro was bound to come back to earth eventually. We can all thank dissento, who noted accidentally during the game chatter last night that "Pedro's bound to have a bad start at this point". He meant to say "at some point", but we can only conclude that he was responsible for jinxing El Rey last night. He is no longer allowed in the game chatters (just kidding!).
- Pedro had a lot of trouble commanding his fastball, leaving it up in the zone and missing his target consistently. His changeup and his breaking ball were working well, but they feed off of the success of his fastball. All said, he hung in there pretty well last night, keeping the Mets in the game despite not having his best stuff. He still managed to strike out eight in seven innings.
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