Maine seemed okay with his outing, telling reporters after the game that he still felt he was a few ticks behind on the fastball. If that is the only complaint from Johnny regarding the outing, Mets fans can breathe a sigh of relief.A few important things to note - first one being that the walks were down. Maine allowed one base on balls and it was to the first batter of the game (granted you do not want your starter to walk the lead-off man and it should further be noted that the aforementioned man came around to score). It is the abundance of walks that have been a problem of John's this Spring and he kept them under control against Florida. After falling behind 3 - 0 to a few hitters, he would settle down, get a strike in, and follow that up with an out via contact. Coming into the evening he was averaging 5.0 walks per 9.0 innings pitched - ouch. He has now dropped that number by almost a full walk to 4.18.
Maine also worked out of trouble well. After allowing Marlins pitcher Anibal Sanchez and 3rd baseman Emilio Bonifacio to kick off the bottom of the 3rd with back to back singles, he got the Marlins' top prospect Cameron Maybin to fly out. The next batter Hanley Ramirez watched the count go to 3-1 before Maine induced the ground ball for the double play to end the inning unscathed.
The pitch count was quite good. Warthen and Manuel wanted to keep him at around 85 pitches on the night, and he just so happened to reach that count with the lefty Hermida up and a runner on first base. This was the perfect circumstance to bring in Feliciano to get some situational work in. John could have got through the sixth if he needed to. Let's assume he would have been at 90 pitches should he have finished the frame. Very encouraging pitch count for Maine through 6.0 full.
If John can keep putting all of these elements together and add the extra zip he wants on his fastball this rotation will have a 15-game winner in him again - "no question."
Posts
stumble it!