Oliver Perez Shines In Zambrano Impersonation

Say what you will about Oliver Perez but his impression of the injured Victor Zambrano is almost unparallelled and his performance last night brought back distant memories of general incompetence and maladroit mound spectacles we had almost forgotten were possible.


Rick Peterson and Willie look on with fascination at the blazing gracelessness of Ollie's outing.

Working a mere 3 innings so as to give the well-rested bullpen some overdue work, Perez allowed a magical 12 hits and 7 earned runs to erase an early Mets 2-0 lead and allow the lowly Colorado Rockies to save some face at home by avoiding a humiliating sweep. Perez managed to squeeze 95 pitches in those 3 innings and as far as anyone can tell, only Mets killah Garrett Atkins hit anything but a single off of him. Atkins of course hit the nail-in-the-coffin homer off Perez in the fourth with none out and finished the series 8 for 11 at the plate against Met pitching.

The only real low point to the loss was that it potentially dropped the Mets a half game behind the Tigers for the title of "Best Record In Baseball" but quite frankly, the trip down memory lane, the pure anamnesis of watching a Met pitcher looking utterly lost and incapable, out of his league and befuddled, was almost worth the price of the loss. (and now that the Tigers lost to the Yankees, the Mets are back on top so this loss was a throwaway, like an A-Rod autographed baseball...)


Reyes sliding home with (is that a cigarette) in his mouth....

Jose Reyes continued to build on a potential MVP run with three more hits and a pair of RBIs to raise his season's average to .300 again - not to mention two of those hits being doubles and not to mention stealing his 55th base of the season.

David Wright hit another first inning homer albeit because the Mets ahead of him didn't fully cooperate by loading the bases, this one was only a two-run job rather than the fully exhilarating grand slam but he also doubled and raised his batting average, like Reyes' to .300.

The interesting thing about this pair, other than temporarily obscuring Carlos Beltran, who could manage only a single and an RBI, is that even though Wright has appeared in 3 more games than Reyes, Reyes has 53 more at-bats. And from the Whudda Thunk It Department, he's only had 14 more walks than Reyes whose 43 ranks 4th on the team.

And hey, let's not forget about Endy Chavez getting 3 more hits from his left field position to raise his average over the last week to .438, on par with Carlos Delgado, who had the night off.

But even in producing only 4 runs in this 8-4 loss the Mets still managed 13 hits, 10 of which came off of Jeff Francis alone.

Curiously a bad night for Olivers as Darren Oliver followed Oliver Perez (a nod to Willie for managing dramatic irony so well,) and allowed 3 more hits and a run in 3 innings of work. Of course, it's a tell tale sign of how well the bullpen has performed that allowing even one run over 5 innings is less brilliant than the to be expected.

So now that this laughter of a three game series has concluded the Mets can turn their attention to the Houston Astros who have won 6 in a row and are fresh off a sweep of the Milwaukee Brewers. The Astros continue to fight for a wild card slot, now 2 1/2 games behind the Padres, in spite of a rather dubious season.

Better news still, Tom Glavine will make his long-awaited return against these Astros on Friday night against the improbably-named Wandy Rodriguez.

*****

The Mets recalled IF Anderson Hernandez from Triple A Norfolk to fill the roster spot of LHP Dave Williams, who was optioned to Norfolk whilst Oliver Perez was doing his Victor Zambrano impression.

It's nice to see Anderson getting another chance after nearly breaking through the starting lineup during Spring Training in the absence of Kaz Matsui who was absent in last night's Rockies lineup.

Dave Williams will likely be back even if El Duque and Glavine are expected to make their returns but with rotation growing more chockablock with returning starters it's difficult to say who will make the final 40-man cut.