They Took Some Walks on Mercker’s Wild Side

Hmmm, Mercker, Mercker. . . . Why does this name sound so familiar?

Oh, now we remember.

Wasn’t Kent Mercker the guy Jim Gott walked with the bases loaded in the bottom of the 10th inning inside this very same stadium to give the Atlanta Braves a 3-2 victory over the Dodgers in the first game of a June 28 doubleheader?

And wasn’t this Mercker the guy who absolutely couldn’t comprehend how Gott could be so reckless as to give up a bases-loaded walk--to another pitcher , yet--in such an important baseball game?

And wasn’t this one game the margin of difference between the Braves and Dodgers by the end of the season--one game separating the National League West champions and the runners-up?

Oh, yeah.

That Mercker.

Well, in the 10th inning here Sunday night, young Mr. Mercker discovered what can happen to a baseball pitcher sometimes, no matter how much his team is depending on him to throw that baseball across home plate.

The very reason Atlanta lost Game 4 of the league championship series to Pittsburgh, 3-2, costing his team and town the home-field advantage, was because Mercker put two Pirates on base in the 10th inning with bases on balls.

Up they came, Andy Van Slyke, Bobby Bonilla and Barry Bonds--Mercker’s Row--and the 23-year-old relief pitcher prepared to face his first batter of the playoffs.

He walked Van Slyke on four pitches.

Bonilla, he retired. Bonds, he retired. Hey, it wasn’t as though the Merckster was totally unable to locate the strike zone.

But up stepped Steve Buechele, who already had been on base several times. And once again, Mercker gave up a walk, thereby putting the game’s go-ahead run into scoring position at second base.

Pittsburgh put up a pinch-hitter, so Atlanta put in a pinch-pitcher.

The hitter then took a Mark Wohlers pitch into right-center field to give the Pirates the game. All Mercker took was the loss.

Well, no sense trying to make the poor kid feel any worse. To quote team owner Ted (Tiny Tim) Turner’s parting words as he left the stadium Saturday: “God bless us all.”

And so, this series will not be won or lost here in the fort of Fulton County where grown men and women wear Indian head-dresses and war paint to watch baseball. No matter which team wins, the matter will be settled in Pittsburgh, where grown men and women wear buccaneer eye patches and carry plastic parrots.

This tussle of muscles between Michael Keaton’s and Jane Fonda’s favorite teams--Batman vs. Barbarella--could very well develop into a survival of the fittest.

The Pirates, after all, have found it necessary to postpone the return engagement of their best pitcher, Doug Drabek, whose leg was injured baserunning, and deploy instead Zane Smith, with merely a three-day rest. And the Braves will give the ball to a tired-armed Tom Glavine, who through most of this season has been overpowering but overworked.

Who the fittest will be, we shall see. You never know how these things will turn out.

As a commercial jingle being played on Atlanta radio stations goes:

Who would have thought

that Glavine

would have the season

he’s havin’?

Just as who would have thought that among all these strong, swift, physically fit athletes--Keaton and Fonda included--hanging around the playoffs, the heroic figure of Game 4 would turn out to be that marshmallow-middled little rascal, Pittsburgh catcher Mike (Spanky) LaValliere?

One of the disadvantages of opposing Atlanta is that this team is top heavy with left-handed pitching. The managers of two of the top five clubs in baseball--Pirates and Dodgers--occasionally find themselves benching their No. 1 catchers, LaValliere and Mike Scioscia, just because they continue to have difficulty trusting a left-handed hitter to hit a left-handed pitcher.

So, while backup backstop Don (Sluggo) Slaught bangs away at a .182 clip, Spanky LaValliere sits and waits. He caught 108 games this season. He hit .298. But the manager believes in his platoon system, so that’s that.

The Pirates also didn’t start first baseman Orlando Merced, who bats left-handed, until Saturday’s game, playing Gary Redus instead. First pitch he saw, Merced parked it out of the park.

Play the percentages, that’s the ticket.

Tenth inning: Bobby Cox brought in another of his 2,000 left-handers. Took out his lineup card. Mercker, he wrote.

Base on balls. Base on balls. Cox removed Mercker, a lefty, and inserted Mark Wohlers, a righty. Naturally, Leyland summoned LaValliere, a left-handed batter.

“Mercker wasn’t throwing the ball well for me. I thought a fresh arm would be a good idea,” Cox said.

The hitter had the advantage. He had two fresh arms.

“I just had a feeling about Spanky,” Leyland said.

He had a feeling that Atlanta’s new pitcher would throw the ball over the plate.