Did home plate umpire Tim Welke have a flight to catch? Based on the strike zone he was calling tonight, he clearly had a better place to be. He was calling strikes that were half a foot off the plate. It was like Atlanta in the ‘90s all over again, when John Smoltz and Tom Glavine (coincidentally, tonight’s starter for New York) got an extra four inches on each side of the plate. Even Jeff Weaver, the starting pitcher for the Cardinals, was upset when a bad pitch was called a strike when he was batting.
Curiously, Welke called a good game from then on. He probably thought he was squeezing Weaver, but in fact he was calling balls and strikes according to the rulebook of Major League Baseball. Fox’s equivalent to the K Zone was repeatedly showing balls out of the strike zone called as strikes. Welke’s gonna hate reviewing that video in the morning.
Cliff Floyd pulled up lame in the second inning rounding first on a fly out, and oddly enough, that turned out to be a good thing. His replacement, defensive specialist Endy Chavez, made a Web Gem-worthy play in left on a sinking fly ball that would have meant all kinds of trouble for the Mets. I’m betting Floyd won’t play again in this series, so this may cause problems for the Mets in the short term. But for this game, Endy Chavez was The Man.
For a series that everyone expected to be a series of 9-7 games, the first one was anything but. Jeff Weaver has been so phenomenal in the post-season, someone should do a DNA test to make sure it’s not his little brother Jared on the mound instead. Yeah, they showed a shot of Jared in the stands during the game, but come on, his cap was down low, that totally could have been Jeff.
So yeah, the runs. Paul LoDuca hit a single, and then Carlos Beltran, who has atrocious numbers in Shea Stadium this season, absolutely crushed a pitch from Weaver into right-center. The thing hit halfway up the scoreboard, a good 400+ feet away. That’s all they needed.
Expect more of the same tomorrow, when Chris Carpenter comes back from three days’ rest to take on rookie John Maine. Suddenly, this slug-happy series is turning into another pitchers’ duel.
