CHICAGO – Don’t fret over yesterday’s 17-10 loss to the Cubs at toasty Wrigley Field. Take comfort in the knowledge more mediocre pitching is on the way.
The Mets acquired Chuck McElroy, a lefty reliever who will wear his seventh major league uniform before he will celebrate his 32nd birthday. Until yesterday, McElroy pitched for the Rockies. Aha, so his 6.20 ERA can be blamed on the thin air at Coors Field, right? Wrong. His ERA away from Coors Field was 8.56.
Oh well, at least the Mets picked up A’s closer Billy Taylor, a much better pitcher than McElroy.
Those excited about the Mets getting Taylor will gloat about his 25 saves. They will say nothing of his seven blown saves, which computes to a so-so 78 percent success rate.
Those upset the Mets gave up on Jason Isringhausen will harp on how excited Tom Seaver was to see the snap on Izzy’s curveball and the hop on his fastball back in spring training. They will conveniently ignore how long it took Izzy to deliver the ball to the plate yesterday with runners on base.
Jessie James couldn’t fire a bullet to second base in time to beat the slowest of runners if he had to rely on Isringhausen to deliver the gun to the plate. This flaw is common with pitchers just up from Triple A. Isringhausen has been around so long that if he hasn’t learned it by now he never will. To assume he will learn how to throw strikes and pitch with a gameplan is to ignore reality and the reality is when it comes to baseball Isringhausen is not a very good learner.
So if you are a team in the go-for-it-now mode and you have a chance to get Taylor, a decent reliever, for Isringhausen you jump at it, especially if you get to throw in Greg McMichael as part of the deal. Sure Taylor is 1-5 and has allowed 48 hits in 42 innings, but he doesn’t walk many hitters. By today’s pitching standards, that means he deserves to have a parade thrown in his honor.
As the trading deadline approached, the Mets sent word they were in the midst of discussing another trade. The name involved, according to one source, was Mariners lefty Jeff Fassero. Nice name. Awful numbers.
Fassero has allowed 223 baserunners by hit or walk in 1232/3 innings. His ERA in his last four starts is 8.36, during which time he has allowed two baserunners per inning. Still, he’s better than Masato Yoshii, so if the Mets could make that trade and beat out the Red Sox for Fassero, why not?
On a more important front, the trading deadline passed last night without consummation of the deal that absolutely needed to be made. It wasn’t even rumored. It wasn’t discussed. It was necessary.
Major League Baseball simply must trade its obsession for offense, offense and more offense and acquire integrity in return.
Jack up the mound. Expand the strike zone. Deaden the ball.
Quick, before we are subjected to more unwatchable baseball games such as yesterday’s wind-blowing-out-to-right Wrigley Field abomination.
Offense sells. So does crack cocaine, but that doesn’t mean we should force it down our children’s throats.
Sammy Sosa slammed his 39th and 40th home runs. Yawn. Pass me the bottle of No Doze, but don’t buy me any peanuts or cracker jack. I’ve already had six bags and five boxes and they were all consumed watching Octavio Dotel, a nice prospect rushed to the big leagues with good reason, try to get out of the first inning.
Baseball could save itself 12 salaries per team by instituting a new rule that eliminates the pitcher and replaces him with a pitching machine. An umpire, when not feeding himself, could feed the pitching machine, then duck.
Pitchers still are part of the game, so the Mets went out and got themselves some new, old ones last night. For that they deserve to be ranked among the winners of trade-deadline mania. What a sorry statement about the state of pitching that is. What a sorry statement that is about the state of a game that stacks the deck in favor of the unnaturally buffed-out hitters.
