Rainout Tidbits

I got a chance to speak with Ollie for 5 minutes in between the second rain delay and he said he was a bit worried taking the mound against the Marlins. He didn't want to say anything negative about Littlefield or the Pirates and he praised the Mets for working with him and giving him a chance at post-season play.

The Ollie I saw pitch was the same Ollie I've seen pitch for several years in Pittsburgh with two differences.. one, he obviously went to the mound with a lot more knowledge of the batters he was going to face than he ever did in Pittsburgh; and two, he had that cocky edge about him he sometimes got in Pittsburgh.. call it an over-abundance of confidence, if you will.

I'm not going to harp on the fact I believe Littlefield should have had more patience with Perez but, considering Dave is going to be around in Pittsburgh under Nutting control, there was no sense keeping him around. Nady was a poor return for Perez in my opinion to anyone except Dave Littlefield.

But Marlins batters were impatient last night, many of them watched called strikes float past them, and they started hacking at everything Ollie was throwing after the second delay.. but they were missing.

The Marlins seemed flat.. like a veteran presence was needed really bad. With Girardi and Loria going at it even more lately, and with reports out today that Girardi might be out of a job, the players seemed almost upset.. listless.

Because of the rain delays, the Marlins said we could buy a ticket to any other home game for $1 for the same type seat. That was pretty nice of them to do that, I thought, and I questioned why McClatchy didn't do that for the fans in those flood filled games in Pittsburgh.

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Remember the name Daisuke Matsuzaka.. he won't ever be a Pittsburgh Pirate but he could be heading to play in the states from Japan. Evidently half the teams in MLB are heading over to scout this guy because his stuff is so good. To get him it would take a $25m or more bounty paid to his current team plus a $12m per year contract to the player, which is way out of our boundaries, of course.