Reaction: Julio a Day Later

Mets fans have been going wild today about how they never want to see Jorge Julio on their mound again, unless it's in mopup duty. Billy Wagner may be a bit happy that the focus is more on Julio than himself. After all it was Wagner who gave up the home run to tie the game in the ninth inning forcing the game into extra innings. However, luckily for Wagner the fans are taking the loss out on Jorge Julio. The second Julio was traded here most fans hated him already due to his inflatted 5.90 era in 2005. Kris Benson was a relativley popular player, and therefore most fans were against Julio. Those feelings became even worse when writers and bloggers began to compare Julio to Armando Benitez, a man on Metsradamus' hall of hate. And those feelings became even worse when Julio showed up in Spring Training looking like, as Gotham Baseball's Mark Healey put it,

Perhaps if he didn't come into camp looking like he spent the winter winning pie-eating contests, I'd have some sympathy...but I don't...

Well, the inevitable happened on Wednesday, Julio warmed up and pitched an inning for the Mets, and few can claim they had worse debuts for the Mets.

Julio gave up 5 runs, 2 earned, in the tenth inning, getting only two men out. If you thought that Julio's 5.90 era was inflatted then don't look at Julio's player page. Matt LeCroy led off the tenth remarkably with an out, but Jose Vidro had a single to left field with one out, followed by a game changing Jose Guillen home run to left field. Julio then proceded to strike out Nick Johnson, however the ball got by Paul LoDuca, who also had a bad inning. Therefore, Johnson reached first base. After a swinging bunt by Marlon Byrd that caused LoDuca to throw wildly to second putting runners on first and third. Next up was Ryan Zimmerman who was in his first at bat after hitting the home run off of Wagner. Zimmerman, however did not get credit for the at bat, as he was intentionally walked to face to Royce Clayton, loading the bases. Clayton responded with a single up the middle scoring Zimmerman and Byrd. Finally, Damian Jackson doubled scoring Ryan Zimmerman. The Mets eventually lost the game 5-9 after scoring one run in the tenth off of Felix Rodriguez balk.

Normally I am more understanding when it comes to players underperforming during games, and this was no different for me, until this morning. I figured that Julio did strike out one batter, and would of had the third out of the inning had LoDuca thrown to first base, despite still giving up 2 runs. The 2 runs was almost overcome in the tenth, but a one run loss is different from a 4 run loss. This morning when I saw Julio's reaction I immediatley didn't understand his problem.

I wanted to be better…My first time here, pitching in this stadium, I don't know the mound, I don't know about nothing here…It's my first time and that's what happened.

No excuses Julio just say you messed up and hopefully it won't happen again, that's all. Do not make excuses, period. I still don't feel he should be exiled to the bullpen, as I still think he can have a relativley solid year, but he cannot continue to have 5 run innings.