IT wasn’t the big game in town.
Neither John Smoltz nor Pedro Martinez brought their “A” game, so they could not overshadow A-Rod.
Willie Randolph said he was so locked into what was transpiring in front of him that he was unaware that Alex Rodriguez had turned the game on the Bronx side of the Triborough into the must-see event last night.
Smoltz and Martinez did not exactly disappoint. They are still both such great pitchers and competitors that even battling for the feel of the ball against the nippy weather – Smoltz described the condition as like trying to “throw a cue ball” – they stubbornly plowed through the lineups. Nevertheless, that the most intriguing, electrifying matchup of the night was John Foster vs. Cliff Floyd underscored that Smoltz vs. Pedro, the sequel, was not quite “Godfather II.”
“People probably expected 1-0 with 14, 15 strikeouts,” Martinez said. “Those things don’t happen every day.”
They didn’t last night. The Braves won 4-3. Smoltz, who struck out 15 Mets in his duel against Martinez on April 10 at Turner Field, struck out just four in 62/3 innings. His first strikeout was Martinez in the second inning and he did not register another whiff until getting Ramon Castro in the sixth.
Working on this chilly night without his heat, Martinez still used curveball, changeup, slider, brains and guts to strike out eight Braves despite deploying a fastball that mostly hovered in the 88-89 mph range.
“I don’t know how he threw the pitches he threw [in these conditions],” Smoltz said.
The Mets actually hit Smoltz harder than the Braves hit Martinez. But in a first inning of well-placed shots, the Braves managed twice as many hits (four) and three times as many runs (three) than they totaled in nine innings against Martinez two weeks ago.
The lingering memories of that April 10 game and the aura of Martinez helped the Mets draw a mid-week crowd of 31,511 with about 10,000 walk-ups alone yesterday.
But the fans only really got into this game in the ninth inning, with Martinez and Smoltz long gone and A-Rod already with three homers just a few miles away. The excitement came when Atlanta manager Bobby Cox pulled ineffective closer Dan Kolb in favor of the inexperienced Foster. At that moment, with two runs in, the tying run on third, the go-ahead run on first and the Mets’ hottest hitter in Floyd up, Cox surely would have liked to turn to a shut-down closer. Someone like Smoltz.
Instead, he yanked the man charged with replacing Smoltz, Kolb, for Foster, who had appeared in one game to date this season. But Floyd could not provide magic, could not challenge A-Rod’s New York star on this night. He popped to short to end this game, slamming his helmet for emphasis.
Floyd and David Wright, in particular, had worked long, effective at-bats against Smoltz, laying off his devious splitter. They combined to get on base all six plate appearances against Smoltz and were the biggest reason he was at 116 pitches, out of gas and out of the game with two out in the seventh.
Martinez finished seven innings, but still suffered his first Met loss. Even folk heroes have off-days, it seems.
Martinez was working against a lineup that did not have Chipper Jones. Smoltz was opposing an order without Mike Piazza. There was a lot of star power missing, especially since Smoltz and Martinez could not rise to their best. There was hope that they could recreate that stirring feeling.
But at Shea, the news arrived of A-Rod’s accomplishments, and the biggest matchup of the night was Foster vs. Floyd. The sequel, as usual, just wasn’t as good.