News Item: Johan Santana gives up grand slam to Mariners pitcher Felix Hernandez
Hernandez is the first AL pitcher to hit a grand slam since before the advent of the DH- and he did it off the best pitcher in the game.
Posted by Stephen Silver at June 24, 2008 04:54 PMBut hey, at least it was an UNearned grand slam. And, King Felix got HIS later in the game when Beltran spiked him in the ankle.
Small victories for an otherwise bitter Mets fan.
It's a good thing that the Phillies are pulling a 2007 Mets at the moment.
Posted by: Dan at June 25, 2008 09:08 AMthere's no such thing as an "unearned grand slam." A grand slam home run is a homer with runners on all 3 bases. All 4 of the runs themselves may not have been earned but at least one of the runs is earned and charged to Johan's ERA. As for the Phils, I don't think the Mets are catching them this year. Comparing them to the 2007 Mets implies that the Phils are ready to take the last month of the season off. This Phils team is reminiscent of 93 - hard hitting offense, scrappy D, likeable players, great pen. If they had a starter after Hamels they'd be golden. And since the Mets will likely be out of it by the break, let's deal!
Posted by: LilB at June 25, 2008 10:01 AMThe Philly optimism is overwhelming.
Honestly, I don't think I've ever seen a Philly fan actually think their team is going to win after 6 straight losses. I think Steve might be misrepresenting the pervailing mood in the city of brotherly love.
But as much as you have a great pen, no starting pitching will be tricky to overcome. Even with the Mets woes, their one constant over the losing streaks and inconsistency is their starting pitchers (with the exception of Ollie Perez). If they can start hitting they can win a lot of games with starting pitching. The Phillies will need to score lots of runs to overcome bad starting pitching.
And as for your comment about an unearned grand slam... NONE of the runs are earned. So eevn though he DID give up the HR to the opposing pitcher, you'd never know it by looking at his ERA.
Johan's line for Monday was
7.0IP, 7H, 5R, 1ER, 1HR, 2BB, 4K
His lone EARNED run was given up in the 5th inning on a Lopez single to left which drove in Bloomquist. If David Wright hadn't have committed an error with 2 on and 2 out, Felix Hernandez never would have had the opportunity to hit the grand slam.