One The Old-Fashioned Way
OK, this makes up for the debacle in Arizona on Friday. Ordinarily, we would have had no business winning this game, but for one swing by Langerhans and yet another crafty Smoltz performance. Even Reitsma redeemed his Friday performance (though overcoming the totality of his failures to this point would be a task fit for Sisyphus).
Since we notched the victory, we can approach with some contentment the historical significance of Jake Peavy's performance -- a new contender in the annals of dominant pitching performances against the Braves. Seven innings, 3 hits, 16Ks, one ball out of the infield (Langy's HR). How in the world he is 3-5 with a 3.64 ERA is completely beyond comprehension. Last night he looked like Greg Maddux with 10 extra MPH.
Off the top of my head, there are three other performances that compare:
1) Ramon Martinez (June 4, 1990) -- 3-hit shutout, 1BB, 18Ks. Aesthetically, Peavy's performance most resembled this one. Pedro's older brother also threw a darting 98 MPH fastball, and made us look foolish all night. Of course, our 1990 lineup featured the desiccated remains of Murph, and the less said about "Jim Presley, cleanup hitter", the better.
2) Ben Sheets (May 16, 2004) -- another 3-hit, 1BB, 18K domination, with his only mistake being a solo HR to Andruw. Sheets doesn't have quite the arsenal of Peavy in terms of nasty, late-moving pitches. This was more Ryan-esque -- here comes another fastball, and you won't be hitting it. Please have a seat.
3) Randy Johnson (May 18, 2004) -- right on the heels of the Sheets debacle came the Unit's 13K perfect game. The Braves didn't play the day before, so these were consecutive games. In truth, Sheets was more dominant, but you can't do much better than no baserunners allowed.
I'll rank them:
1) Johnson
2) Sheets
3) Peavy
4) Martinez
With our early struggles again this year, it's easy to forget the gloom that followed the Sheets and Johnson games. These were the standings the following morning:
Florida 21-17
Philadelphia 20-17
NY Mets 19-20
Atl 17-20
Mon 14-25
We didn't give up then, and we're certainly not giving up now.
Since we notched the victory, we can approach with some contentment the historical significance of Jake Peavy's performance -- a new contender in the annals of dominant pitching performances against the Braves. Seven innings, 3 hits, 16Ks, one ball out of the infield (Langy's HR). How in the world he is 3-5 with a 3.64 ERA is completely beyond comprehension. Last night he looked like Greg Maddux with 10 extra MPH.
Off the top of my head, there are three other performances that compare:
1) Ramon Martinez (June 4, 1990) -- 3-hit shutout, 1BB, 18Ks. Aesthetically, Peavy's performance most resembled this one. Pedro's older brother also threw a darting 98 MPH fastball, and made us look foolish all night. Of course, our 1990 lineup featured the desiccated remains of Murph, and the less said about "Jim Presley, cleanup hitter", the better.
2) Ben Sheets (May 16, 2004) -- another 3-hit, 1BB, 18K domination, with his only mistake being a solo HR to Andruw. Sheets doesn't have quite the arsenal of Peavy in terms of nasty, late-moving pitches. This was more Ryan-esque -- here comes another fastball, and you won't be hitting it. Please have a seat.
3) Randy Johnson (May 18, 2004) -- right on the heels of the Sheets debacle came the Unit's 13K perfect game. The Braves didn't play the day before, so these were consecutive games. In truth, Sheets was more dominant, but you can't do much better than no baserunners allowed.
I'll rank them:
1) Johnson
2) Sheets
3) Peavy
4) Martinez
With our early struggles again this year, it's easy to forget the gloom that followed the Sheets and Johnson games. These were the standings the following morning:
Florida 21-17
Philadelphia 20-17
NY Mets 19-20
Atl 17-20
Mon 14-25
We didn't give up then, and we're certainly not giving up now.
posted by Sam Bass | 9:08 AM
1 Comments:
great movie quote...always love a great movie quote...do they make great movies anymore?
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