RMJ 78 May 3

Pitching	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	HR	ERA	BF	Pit	Str
Mike Hampton	3.1	3	6	4	5	3	0	6.03	19	79	42
Jose Lima	3.2	2	0	0	1	1	0	4.63	14	55	39
Russ Springer, H (2)	1	0	0	0	0	2	0	1.42	3	20	13
John Hudek, BS (1)	0.1	2	2	2	1	0	2	3.86	4	15	7
Billy Wagner	1.2	0	0	0	1	2	0	0.51	7	30	18
Tom Martin	2	1	0	0	0	1	0	0.00	7	28	18
Ramon Garcia, L (2-1)	1	3	1	1	0	1	0	3.26	6	14	11
Team Totals	13	11	9	7	8	10	2	4.85	60	241	148

SATURDAY, MAY 3 ●Houston, vs Florida

This turned out to be one of the longest days of the year. By the time I was able to take the lost-cause cigar test, it was technically Sunday.

 

The day started at Norton Ditto. I arrived at the store at 10:00 for a fitting. At 10:30, the autograph session started. It was not a madhouse, card-show type of atmosphere; the only folks who knew I would be there were Norton Ditto customers. For this reason, it was rather enjoyable.

I had time to visit with the kids who came for autographs. Many of their parents showed their advanced age by admitting that they had seen me pitch.

The session ended about 1 p.m. It was too early to go to the ballpark, and too late to go back home. Ordinarily I would stop somewhere for a bite to eat, but I was still feeling puny with the flu, so I went to the park and laid on the training table.

Dennis Liborio was cutting up some chicken for chicken-noodle soup. I asked him if he could send out for a sandwich; instead, he made me a chicken sandwich right there on the spot. With the chicken sandwich, the half-hour I spent reclining, and the chicken soup I had after batting practice, I felt pretty good by game time.

But not good enough for what followed.

 

This was a game that became a war. It went 13 innings, and the Marlins beat us 9-8.

It was really frustrating, on several fronts.

Mike Hampton could not survive the five innings required for a starting pitcher to get a win. We scored six runs in the first three innings, and I had to take Mike out in the fourth.

When I went to the mound to take him out, a loud cheer went up — a cheer that had an afternote of sarcasm. I had clearly allowed Mike to face two more batters than I would have in a late-season or postseason game.

Sometimes you can lose a battle, but win the war. This is what I was hoping for. The war I was hoping to win was Hampton’s fight to break out of his slump. If he could just finish five innings with a lead, I would take him out and hope to preserve the victory with the bullpen. But he couldn’t make it.

I replaced him with José Lima, with two men on and one out in the top of the fourth, leading 6-5.  Lima allowed the tying run to score, but then shut them down for three innings. In the meantime, we had scored two runs.

Russ Springer pitched a scoreless eighth, and we had an 8-6 lead when John Hudek came in to close the deal in the ninth. I had Billy Wagner in the bullpen, just in case. 

Greg Zaun greeted Hudie with a long home run. Gulp: another one-run game.

I looked at the clock, and it was already 10:30. Gerry, his wife Irene, and Judy were waiting for the game to end so we could keep our dinner date at Ruggles.

The first out came easily. The third was posted by Wagner, after Kurt Abbott had tied the game with a homer to left off Hudek. The idea of having Wagner ready in case Hudek had an “off” night got us out of the inning, but did not preserve the win.

If Hudie had crumbled, I could have saved him. But he cracked so suddenly, there was nothing to do but pick up the pieces and move on. 

 

We had several chances to win in our last at-bat, starting in the ninth, but we kept coming up empty. Craig Biggio struck out twice with the winning run in scoring position. Jeff Bagwell failed as well. James Mouton had a chance to curtail a Marlins rally, but it would have taken a spectacular play.   

With two outs in the fourth inning, Jim Eisenreich pinch-hit for Marlins starter Tony Saunders. He hit a slicing line drive to left, and Mouton got a great jump on the ball. It looked like he had a 50-50 chance of catching it, but he pulled up, slapped at it on the bounce, and it rolled away for a double and two RBI.

It wasn’t a bad play, really. It would have been a triple, or maybe even an inside-the-park home run if he had gone for the catch and missed it cleanly. Still, I like an aggressive style of play. In the fourth inning, we could afford some risk, but James chose not to take it.

The Marlins scored a run off Ramón Garcia in the 13th, and once again we came back. Mouton doubled and advanced to third on a fly ball to right.  The infield moved in, and Bell could have tied it any number of ways. With Mouton’s speed, a short fly ball would have been enough. Jay Powell pitched carefully, and Derek walked.  At least he didn’t swing at a bad pitch and hit into a double play. 

Powell’s delivery is slow, and he does not have a good pickoff move.  I encouraged Derek to steal second, but he did not.  Berry followed with a sharp ground ball to short, and the Marlins turned two to end the game. 

It was a good, if deflating, way to reinforce what Bidge and I had talked about the night before: we had a fast runner on third with one out, but we didn’t score him with a walk and a hard-hit ball. 

As a pitcher, I never conceded that run. If anything, I thought I could get the batter to swing at a tough pitch, trying to get the run home.  If I didn’t, and he walked, there were still a number of ways to prevent the guy on third from scoring.  A double play was the best way!

 

It was 12:30 when the game ended; so much for the dinner date.

Gerry came by my office, and we talked over our pitching options. Obviously, our plan to have Ramón Garcia take Donne Wall’s start had to be rewritten. D.K. could go on Sunday with three days’ rest. Chris Holt could also go on Monday. But Shane Reynolds could not make it on Tuesday after pitching eight innings on Friday.

Because we had used the whole bullpen, we needed immediate help.

Gerry called Vern into the office, and just as we were starting to review our options, a guy came in with a tape recorder. I was a little peeved, because my postgame press conference was already over.

“I’m getting interviews for Vince Cotroneo’s postgame show,” he said. “Do you have a minute?”

Well, it was 1 a.m., and I didn’t feel like spending even a minute, but Vince is one of our announcers and I couldn’t deny him the sound bites.

“OK,” I said. “Make it quick.”

The guy sat down next to me and proceeded to ask a stream-of-consciousness question that took at least a minute to deliver. I gave him a short answer, and he continued in the same vein. I’m sure Gerry and Vern could see steam rising off my head, but this guy was oblivious.

Finally, after about five minutes, he quit. I’ll have to talk to Vince about this.

 As we reviewed our options concerning bolstering the bullpen, I raised a question:

“In view of the fact that Kevin Brown is pitching tomorrow,” I said, “would we be better off to call up a sacrificial starter and let him pitch seven innings, come hell or high water? That way, we would have Kile and Holt on their normal day against the Phillies.”

This question was intriguing enough to prompt a phone call from Gerry to our AAA manager, Matt Galante. It was after 2:00 in the morning when Matt picked up the phone. I’m sure he was glad to hear that it was a baseball-related call, and not a family emergency, that had roused him from dreamland.

As it turned out, there were no logical starters available. We decided to call up Alvin Morman, a lefthanded relief pitcher who had not worked in several days.

 

When I got home, I was weary but not the least bit sleepy. Judy waited up, as we had planned to spend some intimate time together after our dinner with the Hunsickers.

She is amazing. I don’t know how she does it, but she can get by on very little sleep. She got very little this night, as we did not retire until 4 a.m.