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Following last night’s game, Pedro Martinez told reporters that he would need to review tape of his last few starts to determine exactly what he has been doing wrong of late.
Sure enough, during today’s broadcast on FOX, Ken Rosenthal said Martinez told reporters today that he was clearly telegraphing his change-up to Yankee hitters yesterday by widening his glove while switching his grip.
Rosenthal talked with a Yankees coach, and a few players, all of whom confirmed Martinez had been tipping his pitches, just as the pitcher suspected.
Martinez, after last night’s game, said:
“I’m not doing my job and that’s something to worry about…It’s time for me to start getting better, not getting worse. It seems like I’m getting worse.”
In his last two starts, Martinez allowed 12 runs and 21 base runners in 10 innings pitched.
In his previous three starts, Martinez was 2–0 with a 4.23 ERA.
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I think it has less to do with him tipping pitches and more to do with him being OLD.
Clearly Pedro is not the pitcher he once was, and should not be expected to be an ace. That being said, he went from pitching pretty well, to pitching like a batting practice pitcher, at the drop of a hat, in his last inning of work two starts ago. Add to that the fact that both his teammates *and* players on the Yankees claimed he was tipping pitches. So, why should we believe differently? He was old (for a professional athlete, anyway) in his previous starts this year, too. Why didn’t he get clobbered then, if this is about age, and not tipping pitches?
We’re all frustrated, but there’s no need for such “doom and gloom,” melodramatic comments.
Sorry, I’m not too impressed with a 138 mil. sub .500 team.
Pedro, can you spell RETIRE
He’s old, need to retire….sure, but guys but look at realistically. We need him this year and he can still perform in this pitching lineup. I’m not even sure who our fifth starter is anynmore…..
All -
I’m sorry to post something irrelevant to the current post, but I’m trying to show a few good friends the highlight clip of David Wright making that spectacular over the shoulder barehanded catch on August 9th, 2005 against the SD Padres.
I’ve searched every video forum I know of and haven’t found it. MLB.com must have it expired, because it’s not pulling up for that day.
If anyone could direct me to a link to that clip, I’d really appreciate it.
Do a search for “Wright honored for amazin’ grab” - it’s an article on the NYM website. The article is about the 2005 TYIB Awards, and there’s a link to the video near the top of the article.
The catch is near the end of the video
You can also find it on mets.com by going to the audio/video tab, where there is a listing for “Top Plays Archive.” They have every month back to “April 2005,” including “August 2005.”
Fortunately there is no archive for 2008, so they can save some bandwidth…
Jesus, I’ve really got to stop reading these comments, because they’re almost making me embarrassed to be a mets fan. Will Pedro be what he was, no. Could he still be pretty impressive? Possibly.
You can’t get a clearer story than this — Pedro is befuddled on the mound, can’t figure out how they’re hitting him. He and Beltran review tape, decide he’s tipping. Reporters ask the Yankees if that’s the reason they were hitting him, they say that is, indeed, the reason they were hitting him.
What do you all come with? The same old meaningless diatribes. Seriously, this board is embarrassing.
Amen. My reaction was…good, maybe remedying this will get him on the right path. The guy is hitting 92-94 on the gun and still getting his command back.
But 95% of this board thinks Mike Carp is the savior of the 2008 season, so what can you expect?
I’m glad I am not the only person dumbfounded by some of the comments on this site. I guess as long as the Mets are playing this way, anything short of perfection from the players will be criticized.
Anyone who caught Fat-cessa on the FAN between games yesterday heard his hilarious ranting about the Yankees clueless pitchers and his refusing to credit the Mets for anything offensively.
Now that the Yankees have admitted that Pedro was tipping, wonder if he will take credit away from them as well. Doubtful.
Btw - any doubt that if the Mets brought a starter back after a delay to pitch one lousy inning he’d hurt himself?
McCarver 3:15…most swinging strikeouts are on balls out of the strike zone.
Pure genius.
listening to Buck and McCarver makes me want to bang my head against the TV so often.
yeah, sometimes I miss hearing Master of the Obvious McCarver for all the Mets games…..not
Well this is good news I guess. Guess it just means that he has a correctable flaw in his delivery, which is much better than if he was just bad all of a sudden.
if he was tipping his change by fanning the glove, than why did he K A-Rod on a change?
I’m as big a pedro loyalist as anyone, but this sounds like a lame excuse
it was a lame excuse. he was being stubborn by constantly throwing his pitches to the outside corner of the plate, which is easy for the players to layoff. the only good pitch he made was when he throw the change up to the inside corner of the plate against arod. another thing that pissed me off was that Castro was setting up too early behind the plate.
not every hitter says the same flaw or agrees with the flaw being seen, there are hitters that will tell you they absolutely do not want a sign relayed from a guy on second base, because if they are wrong, they begin to question the whole sequence, they have to go into an at-bat with an approach and stick with it, other guys pick up on something and insist they have it, not really that hard to distinguish a difference, plus whether he knew it was coming or not, the pitch to ARod moved like a butterfly in on his hands.
he was tipping his pitches…before he got in his windup, he gave a sign which said “here’s a pitch that used to be good a few years ago but now is very hittable b/c i’m almost done as a top of the rotation guy so have at it…”
:)
Not to mention folks the biggest thing for a guy tipping his pitches is that it allows a hitter to sit fastball.
If they see something that indicates a change up is coming they can sit back to try and be defensive and foul it off, especially with 2 strikes, the way a change up works is if you are expecting a fastball and get a change you look silly.
Pedro’s change up not only masks off the fastball but it has sick movement from side to side and down.
If it’s true that he’s tipping his pitches then it should be an easy fix for him.
I’m a huge Pedro fan and I just could not understand how the Rockies and Yankees hit him so well. His fastball was at 92-94 and his curve and changeup all looked good.
We’ve seen him dazzle in 2005 with a fastball that was 2-3mph slower. I know he’s getting old, but how could age be the problem when he’s throwing faster?
I’m optimistic that they can figure this out and make the adjustment quickly enough.
I’d just like to add, if Pedro was tipping pitches, where was the pitching coach to figure this out?
Maybe you just suck Pedro.