And, they're off!

Well, Sunday was the last real sort of Mets exhibition to be played until after the World Baseball Classic is over and they went off in style with a 13-1 pummelling of the Astros that couldn't have been hopeful to the Astros pitching coach.

David Wright, Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltranand Carlos Delgado are all off to their respect WBC teams now along with JJ Putz, K-Rod, Oliver Perez, Pedro Feliciano and Alex Cora.

The first game of the WBC, China against Japan, is in three days and the American team will face the Canadians next Saturday.

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Good news in that Johan isn't going to fly back to NYC for an MRI because he's feeling much better. He might still miss Opening Day which is a real pisser but apparently, this elbow stiffness is just a result of trying to do too much too quickly in preparation of the WBC that the Mets later officially told him not to play in.

Nonetheless, the concern caused a little shit storm of its own, enough so to prompt Richard Justice to pen a piss-taking column about what pussies modern pitchers are (how's that for some R-rated alliteration?):

If this were 1968, there'd be absolutely no reason to worry about Johan Santana's left arm. Back then, men were men.
They didn't believe in middle relief. They barely believed relief pitching at all. Starting pitchers saw their jobs differently back then. Their starts were their games.
Earl Weaver would sometimes warm up a reliever just to annoy Jim Palmer. He'd occasionally get his worst reliever up.


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Anyway, ENJOY YOUR BLIZZARD, NEW YORK!

Comments

Anonymous said…
Yes, 1968, when men were men and women were men. Even dogs were men. Only Tom Seaver could not tell Gil Hodges to get outta here like Bob Gibson used to tell his manager. Pitchers are pussies now. Jack Hamilton used to pitch barearmed in 40 degrees. He stunk, but he was tough. Nolan Ryan pitched half a season with a partial tear of his elbow ligament. Sick. And he still threw high 90s. Wilbur Wood started both games of a double header. Good grief. And nobody threw shit like Jamie Moyer is throwing up there. Randy Jones looked like Sandy Koufax compared to Moyer.
1:40 AM
Jaap said…
well said, jdon. I remember when Wilbur Wood pitched both ends of a doubleheader. Wonder if Tim Wakefield could do that. Walter Johnson did that like every other day, didn't he? and 1968? Pshaw, let's talk about 1888! Egyptian Healy and Henry Boyle both started 37 games and completed 36 of them for the Indianapolis Hoosiers. Healy had an ERA of 1.35 and Boyle? 1.05. Let's see those post-modern pitching punks do that, whoop!
7:31 AM
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