Heck of a ballgame last night. It's a shame that the Marlins, and particularly Brian Moehler, came out on the short end of it.
Moehler deserved better. I know everyone's sick of me harping on it, but Moehler's 2-2 won-loss record is not indicative of how we'll he's pitched at all. Moe has a 1.97 ERA and a WHIP of 1.13. About the only thing he doesn't do is strike out many batters (5 per 9 innings), but he makes up for that by striking out nearly three batters for each one that he walks (including allowing no walks last night).
Last night marked the second time I've ever seen Pedro Martinez pitch live and in person (both times have been this year). Pedro might not have the "stuff" he had a few years ago, but he's at least as much of a pitcher as he was a few years ago. He seems to be able to throw each of his pitches at two or three different speeds.
That has to keep guys off balance. In addition to having filthy stuff, he was also keeping the Fish off balance last night (Clark Spencer's "Quiet Demise" story, which appears in today's print edition of the Herald apparently isn't online, so I'm quoting old school here):
Pedro has filthy stuff and knows to how work a ballgame.
One other interesting thing jumped out at me from Spencer's article today. I still haven't seen a replay, but this quote doesn't describe what I thought I saw when Encarnacion was ejected:
"[Encarnacion] told the umpire it was a good pitch, after he got thrown out," McKeon said. "I think he was angry about the pitch before that."
Maybe someone with MLBTV or archived video access can pull it up, but I thought strike three was the most questionable pitch in that sequence. All things considered, it's tough to say. Pedro was throwing so many breaking balls at so many different speeds that it's tough to say which pitches were catching corners and which weren't.