John Maine said he’s disappointed in today’s showing against St. Louis.
After setting the Cardinals down in order in the first, Maine gave up three runs on four hits and a walk with two strikeouts in 1 2/3 innings. In particular, Maine said he was up with all his pitches and didn’t have command of his change-up.
“I felt strong, maybe a little too strong,’’ said Maine. “I made some decent pitches, but there were still a lot of pitches I would have liked to have thrown better.
“I’m upset.’’
6 Comments
Ah, being “too strong”, one of my favorite pitching excuses ever!
(I’m not saying it’s not true, and obviously for the first spring training game it doesn’t matter anyway… but it’s a bit like being asked what your greatest weakness is on a job interview and saying you’re too much of a perfectionist).
Holly: Some pitches require more finesse than others. The change-up for example. To throw it properly it should be at the same angle and arm speed as the fastball. If he’s too strong, the arm speed might be faster than he wanted. That can turn a change-up into a not so fast fastball.-JD
This is why I like Maine. He is a cool competitor. Never gets too high or low. Interesting how when he doesn’t show emotion this blog is cool with him, but when Glavine didn’t break any doors he didn’t care.
dave: glavine was a brave… he was always a brave to Met fans and will alsways be a brave. Maine is a Met. We do not think of him as an oriole. I like your point however, more with Ollie however. OP is called “head case” when he loses it, when he shows ihis emotion, but Maine who loses it just as easily, is cool. They both are inconsistent and they both need to figure things out to be really good, and they both need to change the way they handle things,
“That can turn a change-up into a not so fast fastball.”
Not to mention that is straightens out and doesn’t have that diving action towards the end of the pitch.
Seriously, why is everyone analyzing Spring Training so closely?
I remember Seaver’s rookie year. He got bombed his last outing. Really bombed. If it was today, people would be screaming to send him to AA not even AAA. Our problem is that there’s no competition for jobs to speak of so every thing is built out of proportion. Couple more losses and the back of the rags will tell us they are playing bad because of September.