Then, again, things do not always go as you might suspect them to promise with the evidence at hand.
It seemed as though it might be a fair fight between the New York Mets and the Atlanta Braves, the Mets throwing Jose Lima up to John Smoltz Sunday afternoon in a pinch following an injury-mandated pitching shuffle. Smoltz working on short rest seemed a reasonable pigeon, considering a lifetime 6-7 won-lost record and 5.17 ERA on short rest before the first catcher and manager of the day were thrown out in the second inning. Lima working in the National League entered with a 59-47, 4.67 flight jacket.
Lima Time began a little on the shaky side, the veteran right-hander and cheerleader opening with three ground outs around a one-out single (Edgar Renteria) and a one-out walk (Adam LaRoche), but you would not necessarily have sounded an alarm after Jeff Francoeur forced LaRoche at second for the side.
But it finished with five earned runs on the resume and the exuberant Lima looking more like the hapless hail fellow hell met, smiling his way through a nasty 2005 in Kansas City, than the happy hail fellow hell on wheels, who out-pitched his ERA for 14 regular season wins and a nail-driving division series shutout for the Los Angeles Dodgers a year previous.
Lima had more heart than repertoire except for an occasionally hopping fastball. But he didn't have his reliable veteran catcher, Paul Lo Duca, an old colleague from half that happy Dodger season, after a little bit of absurdism provoked Lo Duca's ejection and that of Atlanta manager Bobby Cox following a busted squeeze that actually sent the Braves toward putting a weekend-salvaging squeeze onto the Mets.
Brian McCann opened the second with a single up the pipe and, a Lima swish (of Brian Jordan) later, Ryan Langerhans got himself an infield hit, and the Braves had first and third for Smoltz. Either Smoltz missed or someone forgot to bring him in on the squeeze sign, and McCann shot down the third base line like the Sixth Avenue Express, startling Smoltz into tapping one just in front of the plate.
Lo Duca lunged for the ball and lunged back to bag McCann crossing the plate. Lo Duca was convinced, and a few replays seemed to buttress him, that he had his man. Home plate umpire Angel Hernandez was convinced of anything but, and the run held up better than Lo Duca's forensic skills, Hernandez running him post haste. And then it got bizarre.
Almost forgotten was Langerhans taking second on the Smoltz tapper and moving on to third as Lo Duca thrust his tag at McCann. Unforgettable was Lo Duca slamming the ball to the ground in disgust after getting the ho-heave and Smoltz helping himself to second —only to be ordered back to first because, the umpires ruled, time was called upon the Lo Duca expulsion. Out came Cox, up went his argument, up went Hernandez's fist sending Cox back down to the Atlanta clubhouse, and out behind the plate went Ramon Castro to pick up where Lo Duca had been left off.
The comedy may have rattled Lima, which tells you something considering he could say with complete plausibility that he'd seen it all in Kansas City last year. He swished Marcus Giles before Renteria singled home Langerhans and, a walk to Chipper Jones later, got LaRoche to ground out to first for the side. A 2-0 deficit is manageable. But the Mets couldn't cash in their own second-inning gift from Smoltz, Cliff Floyd stranded after a leadoff plunk by two flies and a swish.
Then Jordan in the top of the third drove one over the center field fence with two out, and Carlos Beltran answered in kind in the bottom with one over the right field fence. And Lima wiggled out of a fourth inning jam admirably enough when, with Smoltz (a walk, an advance on a ground out, and a wild pitch) on third, he swished LaRoche on a riding fastball.
He was not the same kind of fortunate in the fifth, unfortunately, Francoeur opening with a triple and scoring promptly on a sacrifice fly, Jordan taking one for the team and Langerhans punching a single beneath Carlos Delgado trying for the low spear over from first base. That set up first and third for Smoltz. And the Braves got another squeeze idea into their minds, this time making sure Smoltz couldn't miss the sign if he was blindfolded and left with corks in his ears.
The Mets got Bartolome Fortunado — he who joined Victor Zambrano coming to the Mets in the still-debated Scott Kazmir deal — up and throwing, and this time Smoltz caught the sign and executed the bunt, Jordan hustling across the plate and Lima reduced to just eating up the rest of the fifth until Fortunado was ready. He punched out Marcus Giles for the side.
But Unfortunado in the sixth followed a one-out double (Jones) and walk (LaRoche) by serving Francoeur, recuperating from a slump, a textbook hanging breaking ball. And Francoeur missed a textbook hang into the Shea Stadium mezzanine deck by just a few feet, settling for a loge landing. The Braves have broken games open with lesser launches, and they were gambling the Mets weren't exactly going to recuperate from a seven-run deficit with another one of their freshly-patented mid-to-late-game resurrections.
Not that they were taking any chances, not even with Smoltz pitching close enough to his old self with eight punchouts and three hits. About the only thing the Mets answered back with was David Wright's peculiar eighth-inning RBI double, hit straight up into the sun and landing straight behind Langerhans's glove after the Atlanta center fielder looked up and went blind for moments enough. Whether it could or should have been scored an error remained open to debate, though Atlanta's Skip & Chip (the broadcasters Carey, that is) mused aloud that Wright was one player who didn't need any help from the official scorer. "He's good enough by himself," chortled Chip.
The Braves gave the Mets a ninth-inning gift, however, when Wilson Betemit spelling Renteria at shortstop booted Castro's grounder, allowing Endy Chavez (safe on a forceout and on second following a walk) to score, before sophomore reliever Macay McBride, spelling Smoltz's relief Kenny Ray in the eighth, got Beltran to line out to left for the 13-3 finish.
It was just what the Braves needed after dropping the first two of the set to the come-backing Mets, and it was just what the Mets didn't need to launch a round with a few of the league's more competitive aggregations.
No one has yet counted the Braves out after they launch a season eight or more games out of first place, but no one has yet accused the Mets of being hell on streaking clubs. They have three with the Philadelphia Phillies starting Tuesday, followed by a weekend set with the Milwaukee Brewers, a club which has done its best to leave its image as a pushover behind at least for the early going.
The good news for the Mets: they launch with Pedro Martinez and Tom Glavine against Brent Myers and Cory Lidle. The bad news for the Mets: they still have a pitching shuffle to shuffle, with Zambrano down for the season, after he came out of Saturday night's game facing four batters (three for punchouts) before his elbow finally roared. Tendon tear, which apparently bothered him out of the gate and kept on barking.
The irony: Kazmir became expendable for Zambrano because the Mets are said to have feared Kazmir's was the elbow of suspect durability. The Tampa Bay Devil Rays still say thank you very much. But the options for the Mets run from moving Darren Oliver out of the bullpen to thinking seriously whether Lima's Sunday sinking was as much circumstantial as anything else, factoring his periodic bursts of movement.
But they're not going to think about Aaron Heilman moving out of the pen just yet. He may have held his own in the rotation before, when needed, and he may be hankering still to get back into the rotation. But the Mets are said to be reluctant to make much mess with their reasonably construed pen. It would still be less of a mess than the Braves made of them Sunday afternoon, when they bent the pendulum on Lima Time.
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