Heilman will be the scariest Mets pitcher to watch in the postseason. I don't like the idea of this guy still being on the team. When you have these guys who give up huge postseason HRs you should look to trade them before you get back to another postseason. It's similar to not retaining placekickers who miss huge field goals in playoff games. The Jets dumped Doug Brien. Why didn't the Mets move Heilman?
adam dunn hit one off wickman to win it for the reds so the mets don't lose any ground for the 2nd day in a row. i don't know about all that psychological stuff for heilman, but the fact that he's given up 8 hrs this year in 66 innings compared to 5 in 87 last year and 6 in 108 the year before is certainly a little troubling.
Yeah, now I have to "thank" one of my bosses tomorrow. He's a Reds fan and whenever they beat the Braves or Phillies he says, "How about thanking me? The Reds helped out the Mets again." I don't know what the #s are, but it does seem the Reds may have a winning record against the Braves and Phillies this year. Yeah, we can't get inside Heilman's head. Maybe all we can do is look at the numbers. I'm just going off some history that would suggest the Mets would have maybe done better to have traded him away at some point this year. You look at guys like Donnie Moore, Mark Wohlers, Mitch Williams, Rick Ankiel, etc. (it's too late, I'm tired, I wrote about this in an e-mail a couple months back and I had a lot more than 4 guys). They all had horrible moments in postseason games and had real troubles getting back to their old self, if they ever did. Heilman's numbers have not been bad this year, so maybe he doesn't belong with those other guys. On the other hand, he has not been stellar this year by any stretch.
Well the HR's have been the cause of alot of his problems this season. His peripherals are pretty similar to last season: 2007 1.9 bb/9 2006 2.9 bb/9 2007 6.7 k/9 2006 7.5 k/9 2007 8.0 h/9 2006 7.5 h/9 2007 .255 BABIP 2006 .266 BABIP 2007 hr every 8 IP 2006 hr every 17 IP An elevated HR rate isn't something you like to see from your setup man but there's nothing I can see in the numbers from last year to this year that would suggest Heilman isn't the same pretty good reliever that he was last season. If you're looking for a silver lining this HR was the first he's given up in his last 21 innings.
He just started throwing off flat ground last week. The feeling is there's not too good of a chance that he'll be able to pitch for the Mets this season. Burgos is back playing somewhere in the minors so maybe he'll be able to give the Mets something. We can also hope that Joe Smith looks better after his vacation in AAA.
