Take That, Lloyd McClendon!
Click here for a recap of last night’s game.
Earlier this season there was a minor war of words between Kris Benson and his former manager with the Pirates, Lloyd McClendon. The gist of it was Benson saying how he’s learned much more about pitching under Mets pitching coach Rick Peterson in less than a year with the Mets than he did in five years with Pittsburgh and McClendon replying that Benson didn’t have what it takes to be a top notch pitcher.
Benson has pitched pretty well for the Mets this year and put an exclamation point on it by throwing a very good game last night (7 IP, 7 H, 2 ER) as the Mets beat the Pirates 6-2. Though this wasn’t a playoff game and didn’t prove that Benson has ‘the heart of a lion’ that McClendon claims he’s missing, it did make a statement. That statement was “Shut up, Lloyd!”.
McClendon was a marginal player at best (originally drafted by the Mets in 1980, by the way) batting .244 with 35 home runs and 154 RBIs in 570 Major League games. He’s been a marginal manager too with a record of 332-433 for a .435 winning percentage. With numbers like that McClendon is hardly in a position to be throwing stones at his former pitcher who, for whatever reason, couldn’t get the job done on his watch. Maybe McClendon needs to look inward and learn what he could do to be a better manager before he starts criticizing his former players for under achieving while they played for him.
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[…] I didn’t have time to gloat about this when it happened last week but Pirates manager Lloyd McClendon is no former Pirates manager Lloyd McClendon. Regular readers may remember my criticism of McClendon in the wake of the latest chapter of his war of words with former Pirate and current Met pitcher Kris Benson. The New York Daily News then joined me on the McClendon bashing bandwagon the next day. […]
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[…] It looks like I have some company on the bashing Lloyd McClendon bandwagon. Perhaps picking up on yesterday’s Game Comments Ian Begley has an article entitled “Lloyd dead wrong about Wright” in today’s New York Daily News. Here are the first 2 paragraphs of the article: Pirates manager Lloyd McClendon may wish to stop getting underneath the Mets’ skin. On Tuesday night, Kris Benson – whom McClendon earlier this season predicted would falter in his first full year in New York – shut down the Bucs as the Mets took the series opener. […]