Glavine Notches 297, Offense Still Sputtering (Mike's Mets)

Glavine Notches 297, Offense Still Sputtering

Thursday, June 28, 2007
By Mike Steffanos

Mets 2 - Cardinals 0 (6)
Played Wednesday, June 27, 2007

The Mets and Cardinals continued their exciting display of inept offense last night. Fortunately for Tom Glavine, David Wright's first inning homer, a really nice catch by Carlos Gomez and a deluge that opened on Shea in the middle of the sixth were all he needed as he moved to within 3 wins of baseball immortality. This isn't to insinuate that Glavine didn't earn the win. He was smooth, quick and efficient on the mound, and did a much better job than early in the month of keeping his pitches -- the changeup in particular -- down in the zone. But the combined offenses of these 2 clubs wouldn't put fear into an pitcher right now.

It was good to see Glavine pitching quickly and more confidently last night. He enjoyed solid defense behind him above and beyond Gomez' web gem, which is so often the case when a pitcher works fast and keeps his defense in the game. He only needed 81 pitches to navigate his rain-shortened 6 inning complete game, despite a 44-37 ball/strike ratio, and that probably says as much about the struggling Cardinals as it does about Glavine. Still, it was a well-deserved win.

Tom Glavine (Last 5 Starts)
Date	Opp.	IP	R	ER	H	K	BB	HR	ERA	WHIP	Team Result
6/5	PHI	7	2	2	8	4	1	0	2.57	1.37	L
6/10	@DET	4.1	9	9	11	2	2	1	18.69	3.00	L
6/16	@NYY	4	7	7	8	0	3	2	15.75	2.75	L
6/22	OAK	8	1	1	6	5	2	1	1.13	1.00	W
6/27	STL	6	0	0	1	1	2	0	0.00	0.50	W
Season (17 Games)		102.2	50	47	105	49	34	13	4.12	1.35	10-7

View Tom Glavine's Full Season Stats

Offensively, it was the same old, same old, that I'm as bored to write as you are to read it again. Above and beyond the 9 losses he entered the game with, Anthony Reyes has been one of the worst starters in the National League this season. And he hadn't been pitching better of late, either. His last four starts before yesterday featured 5 runs in 4.1 innings against the Phillies, 5 runs in 5 innings against the A's, 5 runs in 5.2 innings against the Nationals, and 7 in 5.2 innings against the Tigers. Yet after Wright's first inning blast, the Mets mustered absolutely nothing against Reyes until the fifth when a hit batsman and a walk were squandered when Reyes struck out on 3 changeups and Lo Duca grounded softly to second. Reyes needed only 71 pitches over 5 innings to notch his best start in 2 months. It's hard to work up optimism for this team down the road unless they can start taking the pressure off their own pitching and put it onto their opponents.

Box Score

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Authored by Mike Steffanos, Posted on June 28, 2007 2:17 PM | Permalink