Harris Saves the Day in Rubber Game
The series ended with quite the same fireworks as we saw in the middle game, except in the final, the Braves came out on top. For the second straight game a team made one final effort to overcome a deficit and came up just short as the Mets dropped their fourth series of the year to Atlanta. Tim Hudson ended up with a quality start but not the kind of game we have come to expect from the right-hander. The box score doesn’t really tell the whole story though. Hudson gave up nine hits but almost every single one was a ground ball that found a hole. It was a game of seeing-eye singles for the Mets, who did not get an extra-base hit off of Hudson the entire game. Ron Mahay and Peter Moylan came in to work two hitless innings of relief with Moylan the best I have ever seen him. The side-armer tossed a perfect inning on five pitches with three ground ball outs. When Tyler Yates was brought in to pitch the ninth with a four-run lead is when everything got a little scary. Yates’ struggles last month are well known but the power right-hander hadn’t allowed a run in his past four appearances. Yates allowed three runs on three hits, capped off by a David Wright home run to bring the Mets to within one. In even more of a sign that Bob Wickman may not be healthy, Oscar Villarreal was brought in to protect the one-run lead. On his second pitch, Carlos Delgado shot one out to left that Willie Harris, who had already made a spectacular play, brought back, taking a game-tying homer away from the slugging first baseman. Villarreal then got Moises Alou to ground out and end the game.
John Maine was shutting down the Braves, but for the second straight start, Maine had an inning where he imploded. With the Mets up two-one going into the fifth, Maine just lost all control. After a Tim Hudson bloop hit started off the inning, Willie Harris drew a walk. Kelly Johnson grounded into a fielder’s choice to put runners on first and third and then Chipper Jones, like he has done all his career, crushed the Mets fans’ hearts with one swing. At the crack of the bat, Chipper put his head down and started into his trot as the ball hit about 40 feet up on the scoreboard out in right-center. Not content with just a three-run lead, Mark Teixeira introduced himself to the New York fans with a solo shot out the same way four pitches later. Every starter including Hudson collected at least one hit for a team total of twelve.
This was a game the Braves really needed to have going into the Phillies series and with mix of offense, pitching, and defense they were able to pull through. Kelly Johnson, Willie Harris, and Mark Teixeira all added some nice glove work in. Two young lefties head to the mound tomorrow as Chuck James will face off with Cole Hamels, who has struggled of late. The game has a 7:35 ET start time and will be carried on TBS.
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32 Responses to “Harris Saves the Day in Rubber Game”
August 9th, 2007 at 3:11 pm
Willie Harris saves the game. I think Willie is a keeper.
August 9th, 2007 at 3:16 pm
Good find for the Braves. Pretty sure he won’t be able to keep up an average over .300 but he should hit enough and play good enough defense to be a nice fourth outfielder. However, his base stealing has gotten bad recently. I think he is scared to take too big a lead since he got picked off in the Arizona game and has become a non-factor on the base paths lately. This game he didn’t go first to third when he could have easily made it.
August 9th, 2007 at 3:22 pm
WOW Will you almost complimented Willie
August 9th, 2007 at 3:27 pm
Sorry if I am being realistic. Maybe it just escapes some of you. Face it, Willie is not a player that is capable long term of hitting over .300. If he was, he would not have been AAAA player for his entire career. Is he a good fourth outfielder? Sure.
August 9th, 2007 at 3:30 pm
I would be quite shocked if Tyler Yates isn’t sent down for Devine or Paronto soon. Quite shocked. He has options left though. He needs to pitch on a much less regular basis and get some rest for a while in the minors.
August 9th, 2007 at 3:32 pm
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’d rather have Paronto than Yates. I’ll trade Yates and a minor leaguer for Farns, though he couldn’t do any better! The Yanks better pay all of that if I take it.
August 9th, 2007 at 3:36 pm
Way too impatient. He has just been the most overused reliever in baseball this year. He needs to get some rest in the minors.
August 9th, 2007 at 3:38 pm
Will, I could see Ascanio getting the call. I like Devine more but Ascanio’s last two outings: 3 IP 7 Ks 1 BB 0 H.
His big league numbers are impressive too.
What I will never understand is Bobby’s insistence on relievers only pitching one inning? Moylan threw 5 pitches like you said! Why would he not pitch the next inning?
August 9th, 2007 at 3:39 pm
Willie JUST saved our season! No question about it! We could NOT have lost that game!
August 9th, 2007 at 3:49 pm
I just think we have better options in the other too. I mentioned the exact same thing about Moylan to my brother though when we were watching. He got out in five pitches and then I said to him that he would probably stay in if they didn’t get to the pitcher’s spot and then I saw Yates out even though they didn’t. I was kind of shocked by that one.
I wouldn’t say he saved our season but it helps a lot . We are like two games out of the wild card so saving our season? There is definitely some question about that. Great play though.
August 9th, 2007 at 4:02 pm
9th Wickman
8th Moylan
7th Soriano/Mahay
6th Dotel
I would only use this order if we have the lead. If we need a groundball out to end a inning or to get a DP I would put Moylan in.
August 9th, 2007 at 4:22 pm
Well, you can scratch Wickman from the ninth for the upcoming series. Who closes? Dotel?
Spectacular play by Harris in left. Can’t even say enough about what that means to our season. But I also see the logic in Will’s thinking… would Harris be tearing it up as much if he were playing every day? Once you factor in all the left-handed pitching he’s not accustomed to facing, most likely not.
And another great point about his base running. I didn’t disagree with him getting thrown out last night because I felt like the team needed to force the issue. But Harris used to be a near-automatic when swiping second, but when he had to cope with the slide-step from Hernandez and Heilman, he struggled to get a great jump. The best baserunning I’ve seen in recent memory was Kelly Johnson scoring from first base on Chipper’s double last night…
And the Yankees already refused to pay for Farnsworth’s contract. He did make it through waivers, but the only way we’re getting him is if we agree to pay some of the salary. Depending upon what the results of Wickman’s tests, I suppose you could see it happening…
August 9th, 2007 at 5:10 pm
OK, AJC has a poll asking if the Harris catch from today is as good as Otis’ catch. SIXTY PERCENT say it IS! Great play, taking nothing away from Willie, but no way is that catch near Nixon’s catch.
August 9th, 2007 at 5:29 pm
I don’t know too much about Nixon’s catch, because I didn’t watch the Braves until 2002. So I have no idea what your talking about, and I didn’t see this catch, but looking at that picture, he went pretty high, and if Nixon’s was better, then it must have been a surperb, wonderful, out standing, and better catch than that.
August 9th, 2007 at 5:34 pm
2002? And by the way, that really sucks for you that school has started. What kind of miserable school do you go to? I get until after Labor Day.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjvZUjN-Zfk
The catch is about 1:40 in but watch the whole thing
August 9th, 2007 at 5:50 pm
I go to Thomas County, and I’ll be out for summer before you finish. We go 180 days, how bout you?
August 9th, 2007 at 5:52 pm
Wow, good catch by Otis. I say Otis, though it’s close.
August 9th, 2007 at 5:59 pm
That video was so good, I had to put it on the blog, thanks for the video Will.
August 9th, 2007 at 6:49 pm
Willie’s catch was not better than Nixon’s. It might have been more important, but it was by no means more impressive than Otis climbing the wall.
I hope that Dotel closes. I feel like Moylan is a better pitcher, but Bobby tends to use closers in only closing situations, while we need Moylan to pitch in any tight spots. Anyone else really miss Gonzo?
August 9th, 2007 at 7:05 pm
I miss Gonzo! Though we never had Luis Gonzalez. Bring back Mike!
August 9th, 2007 at 8:12 pm
Thanks for the video, Will. So many classic memories. I’m a long time Brave fan. I saw a Braves game on T.V. in 1968 (when I was 10 years old) & I’ve been hooked ever since. I got to attend a Braves game the next year, and (wouldn’t you know) the Mets beat the Braves 3 - 0. I’ve hated the Mets ever since. Though I don’t remember a lot of details from the game, I did get to see a young flame-thrower named Nolan Ryan pitch that day. Hank Aaron played that day, too. The Mets pitching dominated that day, unfortunately. But, the Braves sure kicked their butts today! And THANK YOU, Willie Harris !!! GO BRAVES !!!!!
August 9th, 2007 at 11:17 pm
Chipper’s homer was estimated at 470 feet. What a shot!
August 9th, 2007 at 11:29 pm
did you guys see those crowds… if only i could be that way again
August 10th, 2007 at 7:01 am
Ok, I say that Willie, compared to his height, which is the same as mine, jumped alot higher than Otis Nixon did, Otis is 6′2″, and he jumped, but it look nothing in comparison to the AP photo of Willie that Will has here.
Will, regarding your persistent mantra the Willie will come down to earth, and when we say down, you mean down to a AAAA level, I will say that in the long run stats tell the truth and if you are going to bet the farm and the wife against “the house” you’re going to lose, however, there are anomalies, and I will match you in the bet on Willie that he is below .300 for this season (but not for next season) . Yes he will come down, but it won’t be during 2007, regular season. Any takers on this friendly wager? No, I won’t include the post season, because there are so many duds on the Atlanta team in the post season I don’t want to think about it.
August 10th, 2007 at 7:04 am
Another point. Who believes that Andruw will be above .250 by the end of the season?
Oh to clarify what I said about Willie, I think his average will be above .300 by the end of the regular season.
August 10th, 2007 at 7:41 am
i’ll be so happy when the mets are in the playoffs and won’t have to see the braves
August 10th, 2007 at 8:19 am
Great to have a mets fan here. I was visiting the metsblog, Mike’s Mets, and Hot Foot. To read the Mets agonizing over each important play is great reading. Seriously, I don’t think I could ever care as much about a game, as they do. Reminds me of what minorleagueball.com says about Barry Bonds, nice to read about his exploits but I wouldn’t want to be around the guy.
the Mets are in first, still. I think a great comment was made in the MetsBlog, if the braves mess up in the next 2 series after they leave NYC, and the Mets don’t, we will have given back the extra game lead Willie stole from them with his play over the fence.
August 10th, 2007 at 9:01 am
yeah, i mean i guess when your team consistently underperforms in the playoffs after making it like 14 years in a row, you don’t get too excited about anything. Edo River’s comments show why the braves cannot sell out a freaking playoff game.
August 10th, 2007 at 2:14 pm
At least we can get there! Unlike any other team you root for (which is most likely the Mets), we have been consistent enough to get there and beat all obstacles in our way!
August 10th, 2007 at 2:15 pm
Plus, did you think maybe the scheduling is screwed for the Playoffs? Yeah sure, Monday afternoon, 1:00, work, school, many other things do play a role in this than attendance!
August 10th, 2007 at 2:16 pm
I’ll be so happy when Carlos Beltrain strikes out to end the NLCS…huh….that already happened? Brutal.
August 10th, 2007 at 2:17 pm
yeah, i spelled his name wrong on purpose. that’s disrespect.
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