Who’s ready for another chapter in the Oliver Perez saga?
According to Andy Martino of the Daily News, the Mets are falling all over themselves over Ollie’s relief stint this weekend in which he pitched to one batter and retired him on seven pitches.
Pitching Coach Dan Warthen may now be the only thing standing between the enigmatic southpaw’s release or him earning a spot on the roster as the left-handed specialist to replace Pedro Feliciano.
In fact, you might say Perez and Warthen are now bosom buddies, or at least that’s what Perez seems to think while speaking to reporters about Warthen today. “When things are going bad, you find out who your real friends are,” Perez says.
Warthen sees it more like a hen clutching her little chicks to her bosom. “With Ollie, I feel like a father with his child,” Warthen says. “I love the energy he brings every day. I get mad as hell at him sometimes.”
The pitching coach may be the only person left in camp that wants to give Perez a shot and now he is lobbying for Perez believing that he may have fixed Ollie and transformed him into the next…uh? The next…um?
Well, heck I have no idea what Warthen is thinking, but as pitching coach his opinion is weighed very heavily as to who makes the bullpen and who doesn’t.
Warthen wants Perez to drop his arm on every pitch. “That gives him deception, and better command,” Warthen says. “I just want all my guys to succeed,” he says. “We need to give it one more shot to see if Ollie can do this. And personally, I like Ollie. Look at the way he was hopping around on the field on Sunday. He’s always going to be on the playground.”
Huh? What did he just say there? Will somebody please get Warthen a damn bunny rabbit for chrissake.
Can you even imagine Perez as a replacement for Pedro Feliciano? What did Pedro pitch last season, wasn’t it something like 90-something games? Feliciano must be reading this stuff about Ollie everyday and is just laughing his butt off.
