Jeez Louise — does Edwin Diaz play for the Mets, or for the American Association of Cardiologists? The Mets took a one-run lead over Cincy into the bottom of the ninth and called on Diaz to finish up. But before you could say “Kyle Finnegan,” he gave up a hit and two walks so the bases were loaded with no outs. Ouch.
Time to hunker down, ED. Well, it looked like he walked the next batter Noelvi Marte with a pitch that was inside, but Marte swung! Strike three. One out. Whew. Things got a little weird after that. The count went to 1-2 on the Reds’ brilliant shortstop, Elly de la Cruz (below), but then Diaz came off the mound and motioned to his catcher to visit, along with the home plate ump. He was showing them something on the bottom of his shoe and a new pair was eventually brought out from the dugout. He tried one on and then asked if they had something in a wingtip. (No he didn’t.) Apparently, the front cleat had come loose. It’s important because it’s what you land on when you pitch. The new shoe was fine and Diaz took the mound again. The count on de la Cruz was still 1-2, of course, and Diaz drilled a low fastball right by him for the second out. Wow. Who knows if the long break had an impact?
Next up was pinch hitter Gavin “Lux Liquid” Lux, good-looking ex-Dodger. He drilled a hard grounder towards the gap between the two right-side infielders. But second-baseman Acuna made a nice stop, and Diaz took the throw covering first beautifully. Game over. Mets win. Most impressive that with all the stress and distractions, Diaz stuck to the basics and covered first smoothly.
Never in doubt.
Here are Elly and Edwin.
This beautiful bird is a Eurasian blue tit.
One flew by the puzzle today at 55D (“Small songbird”). There was a post on songbirds recently in the Dull Men’s Club (UK) which I may have had a hand in getting removed. A woman discussed several songbirds in a comment and ended by saying she loved blue tits. And since I’m really still ten years old, I replied: “Who doesn’t?” The next time I visited, it had all disappeared. (Tee hee.)
Davey Johnson died. He was 82. He managed the Mets to 595 regular season wins: the most in franchise history (along with 417 losses). In 1986 his Mets won the World Series over Boston. Game Six was the infamous Bill Buckner game. His lifetime managerial record was 1372-1071. He is the only manager with more than 300 wins above .500 not in the Hall of Fame.
He earned a degree in math at Trinity College and was an early user of data-driven baseball strategies. “I used to work on this program I called ‘Optimizing the Orioles Lineup,’” Johnson said in 1995, “and I would run it through the computer and bring the data to Earl Weaver. I found out that if I hit second instead of seventh, we’d score 50 or 60 more runs and that would translate into a few more wins. I gave it to him, and it went right into the garbage can.”
As a player, Davey was a power-hitting second baseman for the Orioles; a 4-time All-Star, and 3-time Gold Glove winner. He is survived by his wife Susan who founded Support Our Scholars, a charity that provides mentoring and scholarships to high-potential, low-income students in Central Florida. Susan’s children were Davey’s stepchildren. Sadly, Jake, who was deaf and blind, died from pneumonia in 2011 at the age of 34. Andrea died in 2005 from septic shock and complications from schizophrenia.
Rest in peace, Davey.
Closing shop early today — need to settle into deep prayer for the Michigan-Oklahoma game down south. Thanks for dropping in.
The Wellington Files 