Jerry's Juice: Ollie Edition

Jerry Manuel said the following about Ollie, who is re-joining the team today:

"Are we down on Ollie? No, we just think Ollie needs to continue to try to get better, try to find himself, try to get back to where he was.  I think Ollie could be of value to us in the 'pen."

“You probably would like to have seen the velocity and things a little better.  But I still think that as a reliever, he could offer us something -- left-on-left, kind of uncertain where he's going to pitch it. I think that's to his advantage left-on-left."

That’s a glowing endorsement if I have ever heard one.  By “value”, I assume Jerry is referring to the ability to rest other relievers in blowout games by using Ollie instead.  Otherwise there may some value Ollie provides to the bullpen that we don’t even know about, like giving K-Rod free massages or shining Feliciano’s cleats.

Now, if the Mets find themselves down by six runs in the 5^th inning, Manuel can bring in Ollie to “get better” and “find himself” for a few mop-up innings.  And who knows, maybe he can actually become a lefty specialist with Feliciano assuming more of the bullpen role.  Jerry makes a good point that lefty batters will be “uncertain where he’s going to pitch it”, because not even Ollie himself knows where any of his pitches will end up.       

So maybe the Oliver Perez cloud will end up with a silver lining.  After all, every team is dying for a $12 million per year lefty specialist, but only the Mets have one.

Now please excuse me while I re-fill my glass.