Mets Game 71: Win Over Yankees
Mets 6 Yankees 4
Mets get a taste of victory against the Yankees — and the flavor is just like chicken.
Mets Game Notes
For the second consecutive start against them, Andy Pettitte struggled early. In a 33-pitch first frame, Pettitte couldn’t locate his curve, couldn’t locate his change-up, and struggled with his cutter. As a result, the patient Mets sat back and either walked or beat up on his fastball. Even Mike Nickeas and Jonathon Niese rapped clean base hits (back to back) in that initial inning.
Meanwhile, Niese had his own struggles early as well, but hung tough with runners on base and prevented the Yankees from scoring. I like his toughness, but I don’t like his gradually lowering arm angle. He threw several pitches from a sidearm slot and many more at an angle between sidearm and three-quarters — too low to get any kind of good downward movement on pitches, particularly the curveball. His low arm angle is a red flag: is there something wrong with his shoulder?
The crushing blow of the game came in that fateful first, when Ike Davis lifted a Pettitte pitch off of Nick Swisher‘s glove and into the right field seats. If Davis is still available in your fantasy league, pick him up — he’s finally red-hot.
In contrast, Robinson Cano looks really off. He was defensive on pitches when ahead on the count, behind most fastballs, and beaten / fooled by high heat above the strike zone. Well, except for that two-run bomb against Miguel Batista.
Speaking of Batista, he had his usual mediocre stuff but was keeping the Yanks off-balance by mixing speeds and mixing tempo. He varied the time he took between pitches sporadically and significantly, and I truly believe that by itself was throwing off the Bronx Bombers’ timing. There were times during the Cano at-bat that Batista paused uncomfortably long, and there were a few “quick pitches” delivered to other hitters. When you have ordinary stuff, you need to be as wily as possible.
I was surprised that Yankees manager Joe Girardi didn’t have a pinch-runner for Raul Ibanez on first base in the ninth with one out and Frank Francisco — who never throws to 1B — on the mound. Further, I was surprised that Ibanez wasn’t stealing second to eliminate the double play. I can sort of understand why there wasn’t a pinch-runner — it was a tight game that could go into extras, in which case Girardi needed all of his bodies. But it’s stunning to me that everyone in baseball knows that Francisco cannot and will not throw to 1B, yet no one takes advantage by stealing on him blind.
Next Mets Game
The Mets and Yankees do it again on Saturday night at 7:15 p.m. Chris Young goes to the hill against Ivan Nova.
Batista and Pettite pitching in the same game is like Indiana Jones coming back years later. Ah the memories. Batista still has a purpose — after a bad few, he was a credible spot starter. I’m not game for him to be the 8 inning guy, but he still gets guys out. The Mets need another reliever. Hefner shouldn’t be doing nothing — send him to the minors to pitch every five days.
Since FF never throws the first and keeps on getting runners on, why aren’t there more steals on him? That is strange.
The Mets won by inches — Petitte settled down and the scoring was 1-4 after the first inning. Still, even one tack on run shows the value of that concept. Collins should do an antacaid commercial though with that pen.
Meanwhile, Jenrry Mejia comes up and takes the 7th; Batista returns to mop up and spot start duty.
Same thing with Torres, incidentally; he’s a late inning defensive replacement waiting to happen once Niuewenhuis claims the job for good, or who knows maybe Matt Den Dekker.
Niese throws a cutter because his fastball doesn’t have enough movement. Throwing the cutter causes Niese to fall into a habit of throwing from a lower arm angle that a) flattens all pitches; b) puts strain on his arm; c) tips pitches to the opposition; and d) makes it impossible to throw effectively what is REALLY his #1 weapon, his curveball. If Niese were like Pettitte and able to keep a consistent arm angle on all pitches, I might feel differently. Personally, I believe Niese should either use the cutter sparingly, or scrap it for a true slider that is used maybe 3-4 times a game, and work harder on perfecting his change-up. He doesn’t need another pitch, he merely needs to hone the ones he has.