Leaps and Bounds

Johan Santana. Randy Johnson. C.C. Sabathia. Dontrelle Willis.

These are the names of some of the top lefties who pitch in the MLB today. However, there’s only one lefty who currently holds an ERA under 3.00 with at least 7 wins as of June 18th, and he is not on this list. No, it isn’t Sandy Koufax, but it’s the next best thing, Oliver Perez. With a unique leap over the foul line after every inning and an exuberant attitude, Oliver Perez has become a fan favorite and for good reason.

The rise to the top for Oliver – affectionately known as Ollie – has been anything but smooth. He began his career with the Padres, but didn’t pitch for a full season until he was with the Pirates. In his first full season, he compiled a 12-10 record with a remarkable ERA of 2.98 and had 237 strikeouts in 196.0 innings.

It seemed as if Perez was the next great thing, destined to be enshrined one day alongside Seaver, Ryan, and Gibson. Alright, maybe that’s a little too soon to anoint him the next Rocket, but nonetheless, those numbers are awfully impressive. And hey, let’s not forget that unlike the Rocket, he pitched more than six innings in many of those starts.

Unfortunately for Ollie, the next two years weren’t so good.

He compiled a combined record of 10-18 with an ERA well over 6.00 while pitching for the Pirates and the Mets.
But it all turned around on a night that would turn out to be heartbreaking for the Mets, but a sign of things to come for Oliver Perez.

In an unprecedented, and frankly, incredibly strange move, Willie Randolph, Mets manager, opted to start Oliver Perez on October 19th, 2006, in Game 7 of the NLCS. Ollie came in after combining with the Mets and Pirates on a 3-13 record with a 6.55 ERA.

On that one fateful night, however, the Ollie of 2004 was back, as he threw six brilliant innings, limiting the Cardinals to one run. The Mets bats didn’t back him up as the Mets lost 3-1, but Oliver had proven to the nation, to the Mets, and most importantly to himself, that he could still pitch.

Now as we move closer to the midpoint of the 2007 season, Oliver Perez has been about as lights out as anyone in baseball, as he flashes a 7-5 record to go along with a sterling 2.93 ERA and 76 strikeouts in 83.0 innings. The Mets as a team are only 3-6 against the Braves, yet Perez has all 3 wins. Ollie is also 2-0 in 2 starts against the Yankees, as he proves time and time again that he thrives on the big stage.

Clearly there have been many reasons for this resurgence, as a pitcher doesn’t suddenly wake up one day and remember how to pitch.

Ollie had been plagued by control problems, and it sometimes seemed he would have to jump over the line solely to avoid being hit by his own pitch.

But most importantly, Perez has his confidence back. For any pitcher, confidence is vital. Without it, it doesn’t matter how much they are taught or how much they practice – at the end of the day, when a pitcher is out on the mound, he needs to have batters fear him as opposed to him fearing throwing pitches in the strike zone.

But there are certainly steps to a pitcher gaining their confidence back, and as a Mets pitcher, Ollie has an aid in Rick Peterson, the Mets pitching coach. Peterson, who seems to have some magic fairy dust that he uses to cure pitchers who have gone bad, has turned Ollie into an ace once again. From the time Ollie came to the Mets last season until the end of Spring Training this year, Peterson worked extremely hard with him to help redevelop his confidence and get back to throwing strikes and attacking hitters. Perez will still have occasional lapses in focus and begin to lose his control, but a visit from Doctor Baseball (Rick Peterson) is usually all that is needed to settle the young pitcher down.

As a Mets fan myself, I can only thank the Pirates for giving us Oliver Perez and Roberto Hernandez for Xavier Nady. After the Mets pulled an Isaiah Thomas a few years ago and traded Scott Kazmir for Victor Zambrano, it looked like there wouldn’t be any promising young lefties in Flushing for a while, but that has all changed.

When CitiField, the Mets new stadium, opens in 2009, Oliver Perez will start Opening Day. And here’s a bolder prediction: He’ll begin his defense of the 2008 National League Cy Young Award.

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