Last night, in a win against the Padres, Oliver Perez tossed 90 pitches and pitched six innings to strike out four batters, while walking two, and allowing just one run.
Jerry Manuel, speaking about Perez, said:
“It was a tremendous performance… We needed a good performance by him, and hopefully he’s on his way to some good things… Tonight really wasn’t maybe his best stuff, so not to have your best stuff, and then have the ability to pitch and have success, that’s a very good sign. So we’re very confident that once that stuff comes, that 94, 95, with off-speed pitches, he should be what we think he should be, and that’s somewhat dominating.”
…the key for oliver, as jerry, Ron Darling, and others have all pointed out, is that he threw his off-speed pitch, particularly that diving change-up, early in the count, and he used it to set up his fastball… and so, even though he’s not clocking 95, batters were still swinging and missing and found themselves late…
“I feel a little bit better,” Perez told reporters, from the media room in Citi Field last night. “I was just trying to do everything I can for my teammates.”
We spent 12 million on a guy who is still learning how to pitch. Next start he'll come out blazing 93-95 first pitch everytime and get lit up like a christmas tree
Well, that certainly would be 'vintage Ollie'. We'll see.
i dont think he is "learning" how to pitch but just getting into season form. He is behind. Also im sure he is working with Warthen to adjust his delivery…make it more consistant.
Maybe this is what Dan Warthen, Jerry and Ollie discussed between starts…concentrating on keeping hitters off balance rather than just blow fastballs by them?
Good outing by Ollie. Sure he got rocked in Cinci, but mind you, for the first 3 innings he was cruising off of like 5Ks and 1H, wishful thinking that it was just one bad inning for him and it's out of his system. More likely than not however, he'll get rocked in his next start.
Each Ollie start should be taken with a grain of salt. One day you get the erractic Ollie and the next you get the Ollie who dominates. I commend him though.
I'd say you get a decent ollie next time out. If you look over Ollie's history, especially with the mets. He typically is good for 4 out of every 5 starts, with one GREAT start in there. By great i mean 6-7 innings with 6+ k's. This wasn't one of those.
Ollie is a 27 year old. He can still be coming into his own. That's why the mets didn't want to go 4+ years with him because they aren't 100% sure he'll ever be the consistent guy they want.
To everyone who cried about Derek Lowe last week. How is it looking now when he got lit up for 4 runs in 5 innings in a loss.
good ollie/bad ollie
what i liked about his performance yestereday as matt pointed out is he used that diving change away from the RH batters to set everything up inside. His fastball really got in on RH batters and did not hand over the plate. I liked what i saw from him yesterday…ESPECIALLY when the "defense" let up a run.
Dr. Ollie/Mr. Perez…..haha if course if we rip him so hard when he struggles, we need to praise him when he is on. It's only fair.
haha.."defense"
That change was devastating and was most certainly the key to Ollie's success last night. Now…let's all hope he can repeat it!
i almost stood up in my living room and clapped when he finished the 6th inning, it was a great job for a guy who gave up 8 in his last outing, and after that error by murphy i thought he would blow up but he locked it down and stopped the bleeding. great job… let see if he can match that in 5 days…
Next start is against St Louis. Lets hope for the best.
STL has great RH bats, so he's going to have to pitch backwards just like he did last night. However, the Cards' pitching is suspect so we should probably put a few runs on the board to give Ollie some breathing room
Those runs will have to come on sac flys or RBI groundouts or wild pitches however.
Take em any way you can get em. The good news is that STL has zero LHP in their rotation. Hopefully Wainwright and Lohse cool off a bit before we face them, haha
ollie did a really good job now if he just go back to last night game and try to do the same for each game he be fine
That is so deep.. You really have a knack to add nothing to this site. Do you really think you are the only person with the mental capacity to add such a statement.
Ollie for Cy Young! j/k
Give me 15 wins, 17 QS (<5 explosions), and 1.35 WHIP
In 2008 Ollie had 16 quality starts, so I'd say 15-17 this year is reasonable. However, if you add in the games during which he went five innings allowing 2 runs or less, his count goes up to 20. With this bullpen, that will be a "decent" start to me, especially in ballparks like CBP and Dolphin Stadium. Our offense is just going to have to realize they need to score more runs when he is on the mound.
Not only that, but they are going to have to realize that they can score runs by actually getting hits with RISP instead of sac flys, RBI double plays and wild pitches.
thats his problem, though
Yea considering that he may not be in shape and is not throwing his hardest by any means it was a great performance and i would love to see him keep using that split finger change
Well he actually "pitched" last night, which was a shocker. Like Darling said, he was pitching backwards, which he almost never does because he has that 92-95 MPH fastball with movement. If he can keep "pitching," even when he gets his heater back, he's going to push for 17 games…of course, he never does, lol
No, we paid 12 million per year on a guy who is mostly good who has clunkers every once in a while, not every other game.
Where did his changeup come from? I know there were all those reports of Santana taking him under his wing this spring. I wonder if he taught him or stressed to him the power of a good change to right-handed batters?
It wasn't Ollie, it was Santana in Ollie's uniform ( # 42 )
:-p
I'd Imagine seeing Santana dominate with the change would have some affect on Ollie.
I agree but the hits should be in addition to and not instead of sac flys, RBI double plays and wild pitches, we take what we can get, a hit is great but there are other ways of getting it done.
Blah Blah Blah……….Perez won a game against a little league team. Let me see him win 5 in a row and I'll jump on the bandwagon.
His next starts are against:
Cardinals
Saint Louis
Philly
Philly
Yep. In 2007 and even last year, he had more high points than low ones. The key for him is to turn those blowups into gutty performances where he gets through 6 innings and limits the damage.
That Pepsi sign would look so much better covering that smirk on your face. Please move so that reading this blog can become more enjoyable, like it once was. Thank you.
Dude…so what if Matt is getting advertising revenue? I say, good for him! He took a college project/hobby as a huge Mets fan writing a little blog and has turned it into his livelihood. Well done, Matt!
I think I said it better in the post on the oliverperezfan site – but has anyone noticed the following items RE: Ollie so far this Spring and year:
1. Change up that seems to have come from nowhere – I never remember seeing it – Johan maybe?
2. What happened to the Slow Curve he used to throw? It kept hitters off balance when it was 93mph fastball followed by a darting 82 MPH slider, then the heat, then a 65mph slow curve….
3. His motion seems to have regressed back to early 08 – Wharthen had him come to a stop mid deliver – I don't see that anymore. Also Wharthen had him rocking back and forth to have his weight and inertia moving towards the plate – this helped him hit the 94-96 on the gun. Last night he was stepping back towards third instead of second …
Ollie did a good job mentally yesterday as he obviously does not yet have the A+ stuff he can have. To see him battle like that, and only average 15 pitches an inning is pretty nice. I am not ready to say he is back, but his stock is rising – from the $0.10 head to maybe fiddy cent!
Does anyone else think that WFAN should stop running the Paul Williams vs. Winky Wright commercial for the fight which aired 5 days ago, last Saturday?
They should of signed Lowe!! Oh wait … Lowe only lasted 5 innings last night, throwing 106 pitches and giving up 4 runs. Nevermind.
Seriously, I'm sick of the pining over Lowe that some do. He may or may not be better than Ollie this year, but long-term over the next four years I bet he won't' be.
Yes, Ollie will continue to be a rollercoaster perhaps his entire career, but I think he has the potential for the high points to be much more frequent than the low ones.