OLIVER!!!

We Knew He Could Do It! Premier Mets Starter Oliver Perez (who?) Mows Down MVPs, All Stars and Hot Hitters in His Usual Fashion (Until He Had an 11 to 3 Lead, and Then Felt Merciful in his Omnipotence) Oliver, Consider Yourself One of Us!

Copyright c 2006 Evan Pritchard

With their backs up against the new brick wall at Cardinal Stadium, of sorts, the Mets turned to their new pitching ace Oliver Perez (1-3 with the Mets since purchased for $5 from Pittsburgh after Dwayner Sanchez got injured) and he came through with a show-stopping performance just as we all knew he would. He tap-danced on the graves of the immortal Cardinals Dizzy and Dazzy Dean, Stan Musial and Frankie Frisch, and his curve ball danced its way into our Metfilled hearts as well as we sang, “Consider yourself…at home…consider yourself..part of the family…”

In fact, he is so famous that the morning of his start in St. Louis, Newsday, a hometown paper, mixed him up with another Mets’ Oliver, Darren Oliver, a reliever, and gave Oliver Perez credit for Darren Oliver’s gutsy performance the night before, when he pitched five scoreless innings out of the pen. That must have inspired Oliver P. to do the same, or a close approximation, to confuse Newsday even more. The Mets have certainly had good luck these last two days with people named Oliver.
What an ironic TWIST after all the times we thought about sending both of these Dickenzian characters to the poor house for their poor performances in games past.

They should have turned Sunday’s game into a musical, with Reyes dancing around, doing the Makarena on the bases, Wright full of high fives and body jive, and Delgado practically sinking the riverboats past the outfield stands in his jubilation over being in the post-season. Beltran the Papgeno-like Cardinal Hunter, bagging two different Cardinal pitchers, was singing Salsa, and Valentin was doing Balanchine leaps at second base to snag popups that were over his head. LoDuca declined to sing a baritone aria from Verdi, but he has my standing invitation to try. That hit and run duo in two part counterpoint with Reyes in the 6th was the most perfectly tuned of any of their duets this year, and it sparked a cavalcade of song called Meet Me In St. Louiee!! Or maybe we should have just called it OLIVER!!!

A Play By Play of OLIVER!! the New Musical By Willie Randolph

The first inning, the Mets threatened but did not score. Reyes facing Reyes struck out. Beltran got a walk and Delgado got on base too, but Wright flied out to center to end the inning. In the bottom of the first, Oliver Perez came out and blew his no hitter with practically the first pitch to Eckstein, then survived an amazing error, in which Wright leaped horizontally and got the glove on the ball which deflected it to Reyes, who threw to first at the top of his pirouette, and on target, only to be dropped out of Delgado’s glove for an error. I think that Reyes’ move was above and beyond the call of duty and should erase the error somehow, since it should have gone past Wright for a hit anyway. Perez ended the inning by making Encarnation ground out to Valentin.

In the second, the Mets threatened again, with a single by Chavez to left and a walk to hero Oliver Perez, but could not score as Reyes popped to short.

The Cards went ahead in the bottom of the second 1-0 with singles by Rolen, Belliard and Molina, but when pitcher Reyes grounded to first, Molina was thrown out at third to end the inning.

In the third, LoDuca grounded out but then Beltran followed with his 6th Cardinal Killing homer of his post-season career, that just made it over the left field stands to tie the score. It was the first Met run in 14 consecutive innings. Not that we’re braggin’. Delgado tried for the same but just made a long fly to center. Then Wright, who was O for Everything (O for Oliver?) hit a longer home run to put the Mets ahead 2-1. The Mets had come back to life. Green struck out to end the inning.

In the bottom of the third, Perez got Eckstein out then gave up a walk to Spiezio. Pujols lined to Jose Reyes, who caught the line drive and then placed it on the ground and threw to get Speizio at second to start a brilliant double play, but it was not to be. The humorless stick-in-the-mud umpires didn’t like the looks of that and claimed that he never dropped the line drive, but only pretended to. How can you trust a man who stole 64 bases in one year and never paid for them? The umpire’s decision cost the Mets as Encarnation followed with a triple, scoring Speizio to make it 2-2. Rolen flied to center to end the inning.

The Mets got a walk from leadoff man, Valentin, but did not threaten in the fourth. In the bottom of the inning, Perez got Edmonds out on a long fly to left, but then Belliard got a single to center that dropped in, then he stole second on a close play. Molina hit a scorching ground ball in the hole on the shortstop side of second, as Reyes was shifted to the left, but Valentin came out of nowhere and leaped into the shortstop hole and threw off balance a perfect strike to Delgado for the second out. Is that 4-3 or 6-3? Hard to say. Valentin should get triple-time pay this year for playing understudy to the right fielder, the shortstop, and the first baseman, and of course, for playing second. Then pitcher Reyes struck out.

In the top of the fifth, LoDuca grounded to short but the shortstop blew the play, and Mets fans said, “Woe be unto those teams who allow the leadoff Mets runner a free base on an error.” The win-hungry Mets fans smelled bird blood and went in for the kill. Beltran then singled to right, and then Delgado did what we were screaming at the TV for him to do, he bashed a three run homer, and the Mets went out ahead 5-2. The Mets like to rally after big homers, and score one more for a little denouement. Green got a single to right after Wright’s K, which knocked out Reyes, and Valentin singled to center off Hancock the new reliever. Chavez grounded into a force at second, and then Perez batted for himself and struck out. That at-bat ended the rally and messed up the denouement, but it was a big vote of confidence for Perez, who would live to pitch again, so to speak. I think if Chavez had gotten a walk, he would have been yanked for Ol Man River, Julio Franco, but that’s just my opinion. Willie’s always right.

In the bottom of the fifth, the resurrected Perez came out and gave up a home run to Eckstien on a pitch with lots of heat, but right in the blast zone, and it went a mile. Perez then calmed down and struck out Spiezio and Pujols with some of the best pitching of his career, and got Encarnation on an easy fly to center. It was 5-3, but Perez was doing what we suggested would be strongly advisable, as I posted in the previous article, pitch the game of his life. In fact, the Fox announcer on TV said, “He may be pitching the game of his life!” He must have read my Valley Forge article. It really was, and he gave us give five great innings, the last of which, in spite of the homer, was fantastic. In 20-20 hindsight, Willie Randolph should have pulled him then, just for the poetic beauty of that last inning, but what happened next was much more fun and exciting, and makes us glad to be alive as Mets fans in October, as opposed to those other fans in New York who have to wait for next year.

Because Randolph let Perez bat in the bottom of the fifth to end the inning, we got to start off the sixth with the top of the lineup as if it were a whole new ballgame, and the fireworks went off from Valley Forge on the Mississippi in a big way. It was a long time before there were any outs on the board this time. Reyes singled to right, and then went to third on a hit and run single by LoDuca through the shortstop-third base hole after a lot of foul balls, and all executed perfectly. Beltran walked, and then Delgado came up with the bases loaded. He looked like he was ready to hit the grand slam of his life, he had that look in his eyes, the way Piazza used to look before hitting it out of the park, but the ball fell short of the fence and bounced out of the park as a ground rule double instead. Make it 7-3. Then Wright walked to load them up again. Johnson came in to relieve, but did not get an out right away either. He game up a single to center to Green to score another one to make it 8-3. Then Valentin, who had been 2 for 19 came through with a big single to clear the bases and earn three big rbis, to make it 11-3, still with no outs. Then Johnson got serious and struck out Chavez and Perez, the latter still getting the vote of confidence to swing, and then got Reyes out on a fly to center in his second appearance of the inning.

Oliver Perez, having already batted four times, striking out three times, got to pitch in the bottom of the sixth with an 11-3 lead. Obviously, Randolph was thinking “This guy can save our bullpen for when the exhausted old-timer Tom Glavine starts tomorrow on three days rest. I don’t care how bad he is. We have an 8 run lead.” But Perez was pretty bad in the sixth and Randolph was quick to drop that idea. Oliver Perez got All Star Scott Rolen to fly out but then came apart with homers to Edmonds and Molina to make it 11-5. Was he being merciful? Or was he tired after all that hitting? Randolph said “Heck with resting the bullpen. This guy is fried.” And moving right along, folks, he put in Chad Bradford, the only pitcher in major league history to rub dirt on the ball WHILE HE IS THROWING IT! Bradford quickly ended the inning with a grounder to 2nd.

Beltran the Cardinal Killer wasn’t through yet, and hit a solo shot in the seventh, his second of the day and seventh post-season blast against the Cards, and that was the final score, 12-5. Los Dos Carlos had an all-time RBI day, so many we lost count. We got our 5 and two thirds from Oliver Perez, and some of it wasn’t pretty, but the worst of it didn’t matter anyway. The Mets had a new premiere starter. Who knew? Before the game it was announced that Perez had the worst ERA of any post-season starter in major league history, and that the other Reyes was second. You knew right then there were going to be fireworks. And there were, and it was great. The Mets and Cards and now 2 and 2 on the series, and meet again in St. Louis this evening to sing and dance around the base-paths like Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney in times gone by. But Mets fans in the mean time will be singing Oliver! Oliver! Consider yourself at home! Consider yourself…part of the family…its clear..we’re..going to get along…consider yourself…one of us!

And they’d better learn to like him, because he might just have to pitch the seventh game at Shea, with all the Cards on the table.

We're begging you, Oliver, please pitch well the rest of the post-season!