If you had the pleasure of watching the game last night, you also got to see an unusual event:
The thought of losing to the Mets because of home plate umpire Mike Reilly squeezing the strike zone was too much for even Willis to overlook.
"I felt myself and the team were working too hard to have that happen," said Willis, of his post-seventh inning comments to Reilly. "I told him, `We're working too hard.'"
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"That's the first time all year I've seen him like that," Girardi said. "That's OK. You want your players to have emotions. You don't want a bunch of deadbeats out there."
Reilly had a floating but somewhat consistent strike zone. It was consistent for about a third of a inning at a time, if that.
I was impressed how our guys handled it: Dontrelle said his piece and moved on. Okay, there was a little help from Olivo and Kranitz in the moving on part, but still Willis wasn't ever disrespectful.
Cabrera was there to stand up for the D-Train and when it was over Reilly said something in Cabrera's ear as he was walking away. Miguel just listened to what he had to say and walked to the dugout.
There was no anger, sure there was some frustration, but they made their point and went on.
The best and possibly funniest description of how unusual it is for Willis to complain, comes from Greg Cote.