Sometimes it seems as though Mike Gonzalez gives up a lead-off home run every time he comes in to close out a game; it isn't literally the case. But it has happened often enough that people ask what's wrong with him.
Gonzalez came back from Tommy John surgery in record time -- a year, roughly. He's still getting the kinks out. "There's days that I feel like the slider's filthy," he says, "and there's days it's just so-so. There's days that my fastball's 95-plus, there's days it's 90, 91. Learning to deal with that right now is what I'm trying to do. If I've got less, then I've got to try to pitch around that."
Because his 95-plus heater isn't always at his command, Gonzalez is having to think ahead and plot his approach by recognizing situations. The eighth inning of Tuesday's game, for instance, when Phillies slugger Ryan Howard came to the plate. Howard greeted him with a homer that turned a one-run Braves lead into a one-run deficit -- and an eventual loss.
"Just a poor pitch selection," Gonzalez said. "I need to make sure I'm seeing who's on deck, guys who are up behind him. If it was going to be anyone who was going to hurt me, it was going to be Ryan Howard. And that's who hurt me.
"Obviously, (if) you have that 95-plus, you can probably get that pitch by him. But you've got to know what you have that day. I think I just pushed it a little bit too much (Tuesday)."
PHILLIES 6, BRAVES 1: RHP Jair Jurrjens' shaky first inning -- giving up four runs on three hits and throwing 43 pitches -- was enough for the Phillies. And the Braves, typically, were flummoxed by a young pitcher they hadn't seen before, and a lefty at that, J.A. Happ.
Play FOX Fantasy Football Today >
