Fate Says No-No to Pedro
Click here for a recap of last night’s game.
Pedro Martinez showed yesterday why he’s one of the best pitchers in the game. After getting rocked in his last outing he pitched a gem yesterday, taking a no hitter into the eighth inning and finnishing with a complete game 2-hitter (2 ER, 1 BB, 5 SO). An excellent game by any standards. Yet all I see in the media is how Pedro came so close to a no-hitter and how Gerald Williams let the game get away. Check this out from today’s New York Times:
…Gerald Williams crashed into the center-field wall, allowing a triple that set up the winning rally.
Sounds alot like blaming Williams to me but the truth is that it would have been a tough catch for any ceter fielder. In fact, Pedro said that if Williams couldn’t get it then odds are that Carlos Beltran, the man Williams is subbing for, would not have gotten it eithr. Cliff Floyd also voiced support for the substitute center fielder.
Nobody (that I have read) has commented that the Mets should have won the game regardless of all this. When your ace takes a no hitter into the latter parts of the game you damn well better give him enough runs to get him the win even if he does lose the no-no (barring a complete breakdown where many runs are scored off him). In this case all it would have taken were 3 runs. Even without Beltran in the lineup this team should have been capable of providing 3 runs to their ace. Instead, they blew another excellent outing by Pedro.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
[…] Although I quoted from the New York Times in yesterday’s game comments in reference to people blaming Gerald Williams for losing the no-hotter for Pedro Martinez it seems like the New York Post has decided to get in on the action. In this morning’s paper the Post features a picture of Williams saving Dwight Gooden’s no-hitter in 1996. The caption reads as follows: DÉJÀ VU: When Mets center fielder Gerald Williams missed the catch that would have preserved Pedro Martinez’ no-hit bid Sunday, it may have seemed familiar to New York fans. That’s because in May of 1996, Williams (then with the Yankees) made a leaping catch in deepest center field at Yankee Stadium in the first inning of Dwight Gooden’s only no-hitter. Williams turned the catch, off the bat of the Mariners’ Alex Rodriguez, into a double play. […]