Nelson Figueroa and Hoosiers
By Howard Megdal ~ August 4th, 2009. Filed under: Howard Megdal.
One of the finest sports movies ever made is Hoosiers. Of course, we see the team peak at the right time, win the championship. We don’t have to watch them try and repeat against bigger, stronger and more skilled players. Nelson Figueroa’s first few starts with the Mets had a Hoosiers feel. The last few, and tonight, felt like a movie no one wanted to see. No one wanted to see Ollie miss those Rick Barry-style free throws.
Unfortunately, tonight Mets fans witnessed the demolition of Nelson Figueroa in more than just one game’s terms. Indisputably, Figueroa wasn’t in the team’s plans this season. The Mets wouldn’t have brought in Livan Hernandez, Freddy Garcia and Tim Redding if they had any intention of starting Nelson Figueroa at the major league level this year.
But injuries, and more to the point, Figueroa’s absolute dominance at Triple-A provided him with another chance. I’ve profiled Figueroa in the past; no more thoughtful player exists in organized baseball. He has a self-awareness that is uncommon in anyone, baseball player or other profession.
That’s what made Monday night’s media gaggle by Figueroa’s locker following the 6-5 loss to Arizona so painful to experience. Figueroa, as he always is, provided reporters with in-depth answers to every question, even as there was so little to say. He’d been ripped to the tune of six earned runs in just an inning and two thirds of work.
“I didn’t start very well, I didn’t finish very well,” Figueroa told us as we huddled around him at his locker. “This is not the way I planned this happening.”
Figueroa is such a natural for Mets fans to root for- a Brooklyn kid, someone who name-dropped Gregg Jefferies during an interview I did with him last season.He is also entirely aware of his numbers, correcting a reporter who mentioned his last 10 starts by saying, “my last 17 starts, actually.”
Figueroa knows that, even though Monday night’s performance is far likelier to be the fluke than his extended run of success at Triple-A, he fed into the unfair characterization of himself as a Quadruple-A pitcher. It will be hard for the Mets to find him another start.
That came through in his answer to what is next.
“There’s no certainty in this game,” Figueroa said. “You don’t know if there’s a tomorrow.”
The fact no one even needed to bring up was that for Figueroa, 35 and with difficulty drawing the attention of major league clubs even when a decade younger, Monday night may have been when he ran out of major league tomorrows. It’s sad- that’s a guy who deserves a Hoosiers ending.
