What To Do With Oliver Perez

Oliver Perez has certainly been a bit of a project since he became a Met. There have been some days in which he looks ike an ace, and there have been others that make people think that he shouldn’t be in the major leagues. So far this season, there has been more of the latter.

He has only lasted five or more innings once, and that was when he earned his only victory of the season against Dan Diego on April 15. He has already walked 15 batters in just 19.1 innings, and he is going to need to get his act together if he wants to stay in this rotation.

Today should be an interesting start to watch. Perez always seems to step it up for the big games, and then he decided to pitch down to terrible opponents. When you can’t get out of the fifth inning against the Nationals, then you know something is wrong. Today, the dimensions will not be working in his favor in the tiny place that is Citizens Bank Park. Yesterday, we saw Daniel Murphy and Chase Utley each hit home runs that would have surely been caught in Citi Field. Heck, Mike Pelfrey just missed one…which was rather frustrating, because I nearly peed my pants when I saw him hit it.

This lineup is very left handed, and that should work in Perez’s favor, but nothing seems to go as it should for Ollie.

You would have to think that Jimmy Rollins, Utley, Shane Victorino, Ryan Howard and Raul Ibanez would all be in there today, and these are guys who fare much better against right handed pitching. Ollie needs to not try and be so cute, and he needs to go right after them. If one of them clobbers a homer, then so be it, because walks are more frustrating than giving up homers.

Make the opposing team earn it, and learn from Chan Ho Park’s mistakes.

We all probably expect Ollie to come in today and get rocked, but this seems like one of those games that he gets amped up for. The Mets are going to need the good Ollie, and they are going to need to be patient if they want any chance to beat Philadelphia today.