Aftermath: Mets vs Phillies (04/11/2007)

Phillies 5, Mets 2

(Source: fangraphs.com - what's this?)

Oliver Perez's pitching line:

 IP   H   R  ER  BB  SO  HR   PC-ST   GS
2.2   1   3   3   7   2   0   73-32   39

I had a gigantic burrito for dinner tonight. It had black beans, mexican rice, fajita chicken, a little bit of onion, pepper, corn for good measure. This honker must've weighed twelve ounces, easy. Needless to say, I can't believe I ate the whole thing.

That burrito was awesome. I won't soon forget just how awesome it was. Tonight's Mets game was dreck. If I'm lucky, I will soon forget how depressing this game really was. The Mets managed to collect just four hits and plated only two runs against Adam Eaton tonight, which is deplorable but also forgiveable. Eaton didn't look particularly good tonight, but the Mets seemed to have a lot of trouble picking up his fastball in on left-handed hitters. Fine, I can accept that. Eaton has been an unspectacular pitcher for his entire career, and tonight he had the Mets's number.

More discouraging than the fact that the "O" didn't show up tonight was the seemingly-huge step back that Oliver Perez took in his development. After his seven inning, 82-pitch, zero-walk effort last week against the Braves, Perez came out tonight and was actually pretty sharp to start the game, retiring the Phillies in order in the top of the first. That brief moment of success evaporated quickly as he walked three batters in the second inning, but managed to squeak his way through without a run scoring. Things really hit the shits in the third inning, though. Perez got Jimmy Rollins on a flyout to Moises Alou and Shane Victorino on a groundout to Jose Reyes. Then? Meltdown.

• Single (Chase Utley)
• Walk (Ryan Howard)
• Walk (Pat Burrell)
• Walk (Wes Helms)
• Walk (Aaron Rowand)
• HBP (Rod Barajas)

When he was finally and mercifully relieved by Aaron Sele, Perez had walked in two runs and hit-by-pitched in a third. He walked seven batters and threw just 32 of 73 pitches for strikes. It was an unmitigated disaster for Perez, who showed signs last week and in last year's playoffs that he was on the verge of figuring things out. After the first couple of walks, Perez clearly lost confidence, lost his mechanics, lost his release point, and ultimately lost control of the game. We so easy convinced ourselves that his problems were behind him, that Professor Rick had successfully reclaimed a young power arm, and that all those who questioned his spot in the rotation were fools. Well, whatever. He'll have a bullpen session in a couple of days, he'll drink a bit more of the Peterson kool aid, and he'll step out there and give it another go next week.

That's it. I don't really have anything positive to say about this game. Mets pitchers walked eleven batters in all -- just five hits, but all of those walks to go along with two HBPs. Joe Smith actually threw pretty well tonight, allowing just a walk in 1.1 innings, and striking out Rollins on a nasty slider. Other then that, the rest of these jokers can go to their rooms and think about what they've done. No tv, no video games, just silent lamentation of a job done poorly. This is not a bad team, not by a long shot, but collectively they had a bad game. The sun'll come out tomorrow, and tomorrow night will be a chance for redemption.

Mr. Met:

• Hitting: Jose Reyes, 8.6% WPA
• Pitching: Joe Smith, 3.1% WPA

Mr. Regret:

• Hitting: Moises Alou, -20.2% WPA
• Pitching: Oliver Perez, -20.2% WPA

(FanGraphs.com)
(ESPN.com Boxscore)