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Andrew Zarzour remembers feeling more nervous than usual during his warm-up pitches leading into the bottom of the first inning against Atlanta in Game Four of the NLCS.
The Dodgers had been three-up, three-down to start the game, and the Turner Field crowd buzzed with an extra energy as the home fans tried to keep their team from getting swept away by the red-hot Dodgers.
Zarzour got Mark Grudzielanek to fly out to start the game, but then he bobbled a grounder up the middle hit to him by Erubiel Durazo. That shook his confidence — he just got ahead of himself trying to make a play for his team — and the big fella walked the next batter, Cliff Floyd on four pitches.
Then, with men on first and second, Zarzour hung a pitch over the middle of the plate to J.D. Drew. Before you could say "tomahawk chop," Drew drilled Zarzour's weak offering into the right centerfield seats for a three-run homer. This wasn’t the start that Andrew Zarzour had hoped for on national TV, putting his team down 3-0 on a night they hoped to clinch a berth into the World Series. He was so angry at himself, he fanned both Javy Lopez and Scott Spiezio on three pitches each to get out of the inning (touching 98 mph a few times). Usually reserved, the disgusted Zarzour walked into the dugout and slung his glove angrily into the wall.
“Hey Z,” teammate Josh Hamilton said. “Relax big man. We’ll get those runs back for you…”
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