He’s frustrating to watch, exasperating to try and figure out, and he makes you want to throw your remote at the TV more often than not so far this season, but there is mounting evidence that Oliver Perez may be ready to step up in a big way for the Mets.
I know we’ve seen back to back solid starts before from Perez, and yet he always manages to revert back to his wild and inconsistent ways, but there was something there recently that makes me think otherwise.
In the past we have always seen the Oliver Perez implosions on the mound, particularly after he gives up a homerun, or has the bases juiced. One of the things that I took away from his last start was that after giving up the first inning homerun to Josh Hamilton, he immediately composed himself and didn’t allow another hit for the next four innings. Later on in the game when he loaded the bases, it may have required a visit to the mound by Rick Peterson, but the bottom line is he fought through and ended the threat with a clutch strikeout. It’s something we’ve rarely seen from Perez this season and points to the possibility his recent turn-around is legit.
NY Mets IP H R ER BB SO HR ERA
Perez 7.0 3 1 1 3 8 1 4.98
His start before that may have been even more telling. In that game, the Mets lost a heart-breaker to the Padres 2-1, but it was a huge effort from the Mets lefty, Perez. As in his last game, the lone run came from a solo homer, but it came late and he was quickly removed in the sixth inning. The Mets may have thought to themselves, uh oh, he is going to implode, but I thought they should have stuck with him because he battled for the entire game. It was a great comeback for him after his previous start which was an outright disaster. You all know the one.
NY Mets IP H R ER BB SO HR ERA
Perez 5.1 4 1 1 2 5 1 5.37
In his last 12.1 innings he has allowed just 2 runs on 7 hits while striking out 13 batters. It’s because he can produce like this at any given moment, that you love a guy like Oliver Perez. I’m thinking that he got all of his bad starts out of his system and that the baseball odds are that we can expect numbers like this the rest of the way.
Once before, we had another inconsistent left-hander who had seemingly similar problems as Ollie and teased us with his brilliance on many occasions. He was just as frustrating as Perez, but we loved him and he delivered in the clutch just as Perez did in that post season game in 2006, only this former Met did it 20 years earlier. His name… Sid Fernandez. There was a lot to love about El Sid, and I see many of those same qualities in Oliver Perez. Memo to Omar: Sign him.
