A Tale of Two Prospects Again Puts Manuel's Strategy In Question

What does the Orioles middle relief staff have in common with the Mets middle relief staff? They both can't hold leads for their starting pitchers! This time, it was Pedro Feliciano's turn to blow a game to a bad team when he entered the game in the seventh to allow the eventual game-winning runs.

Gary Sheffield hit his 507th career home run, but the real home run story belonged to Baltimore's highly tauted Matt Wieters, who hit his first dinger off Mets starter Tim Redding, making the O's 6-4 victors over the Mets last night. The Orioles are high on this kid and seem to be willing to watch him develop, no matter how much he was previously struggling.

While the Mets lost the game, David Wright lost his 11 game hitting streak, Redding lost his control walking 4, and Met fans lost their collective stomachs again watching another puzzling move by Met manager Jerry "Manual".

In the Mets top of the six, after the Mets already scored two runs to tie the game, the Mets had the bases loaded with only 1 out. Rookie Fernando Martinez (already 1 for 3 in the game and hitting over .300 for the season) was scheduled to bat. "Here's a chance to see if the kid can break the game wide open", Met fans were undoubtedly thinking. However, he never got the chance as Manuel pulled him for pinch hitter Fernando Tatis, who never met a double play he couldn't ground into. Sure enough, that's what happened.

So Jerry, how's the righty-lefty matchups going lately? Is there anyone out there who can honestly tell me that, all things being equal, this lefty righty strategy really makes a difference? Was there really anyone out there watching the game that didn't think a disaster at-bat was awaiting with Tatis in that situation?

Jerry - the Met organization is so high on this Fernando Martinez kid. LET'S SEE WHAT HE CAN DO!!! Bad decision... bad move... bad manager... bad loss. Matt Wieters should be happy his manager believes in him.