Somewhere in the background of a nasty, heated rivalry, there was a bad baseball game. But way in the background.
After 3 hours of the most mind-numbingly ugly and seemingly pointless game, everything came down to a 20-year-old Korean pitcher who was the focal point of a battle between the Mets and Diamondbacks, and the ninth inning he would pitch in his major league debut.
But not before Bobby Valentine would try to get inside the kid’s head before he pitched, which prompted an angry response from the Diamondback third baseman Matt Williams. Oh, that these two teams should meet in the playoffs.
In the end right-hander Byung-Hyun Kim, whom the Mets coveted dearly three months ago, closed out the game by getting Edgardo Alfonzo, John Olerud and Mike Piazza – three of the best hitters on the team, if not the league – 1-2-3 to preserve an 8-7 win.
While he was warming to face his first batter, Valentine went out to talk to home-plate umpire Larry Poncino to ask him to check on the size of Kim’s glove. During the conversation, Valentine, a one-time expert ballroom dancer, waltzed Poncino almost directly in front of the plate so that Kim couldn’t warm up.
Williams didn’t like that at all and started walking purposefully toward Valentine, but by then the manager had walked back to the dugout, a mission of gamesmanship hopefully completed.
“That was high school bull is what that is,” Williams said. “What purpose does that have to come out and stand there while he’s warming up. It’s high school. It’s stupid. I just told him, ‘Hey, go back to the dugout. It’s his major league debut.'”
Valentine was perhaps responding in kind because on Friday night third-base umpire Steve Rippley made Turk Wendell change his glove because it was two colors. Wendell originally blamed D-Backs manager Buck Showalter, who denied having anything to do with it.
“Some of our guys thought [Kim] had an oversized glove,” Valentine said. “This umpiring crew has a thing about gloves being one color. It was on color so it was OK.”
Said Showalter, after rolling his eyes, “Let’s get this straight. I didn’t ask to them to check Wendell’s glove, [third base coach Brian] Butterfield didn’t ask them to check his glove. That was Steve Rippley.”
The subtext here is that the Diamondbacks were featuring a pitcher the Mets wanted to sign very badly, but could not outbid Arizona for. Some in the organization think the timing of his major league debut was intended as a little “in your face,” to the losers.
The Mets tried to sign him after he pitched against the Mets in spring training 1998, but the Diamondbacks signing bonus of $2.25 million was the clincher.
It looked as if every cent was well spent as the submarining Kim ignored Valentine’s plans of sabotage and pitched like a 10-year veteran, striking out Piazza to end the game.
“He probably didn’t even realize what the heck was going on,” Arizona catcher Damian Miller said.
So the Mets have lost the first two very winnable games of this series by one run each, and now face the fearsome Randy Johnson in Game 3.
“We can’t be intimidated by him,” Piazza said. “You have to make him throw strikes. He elevates your game a little bit because he’s one of the best in the league. It’s fun when you go against one of those guys. If you beat him, it gives your team a lift.”
The Mets could certainly use a lift right now. The starting pitching is teetering on the brink of total chaos with little certain except that Masato Yoshii will start today against Johnson.
Jason Isringhausen was supposed to start yesterday, but a sore elbow scratched him and the Mets went to Allen Watson out of the bullpen. He pitched OK, giving up a pair of runs in 31/3 innings, but Gregg Colbrunn hit a ball off Watson’s left foot and he had to leave the game with a 3-2 lead.
But Arizona scored three runs off Pat Mahomes and Turk Wendell, and three off Rigo Beltran (1-1) as former Met Armando Reynoso improved to 3-1, despite giving up a two-run home run to John Olerud that tied the game 5-5 in the fifth.
Reynoso was a pitcher the Mets didn’t want to re-sign, and he got the win. But it was the pitcher they really wanted who got the save – the first of many.