Dan Graziano in The Newark Star Ledger tells us how Guillermo Mota has been receiving guidance from Pedro Martinez, who was the first to notice a fatal flaw in Mota's delivery that the Mets were able to fix along with assistance from Rick Peterson, bullpen coach Guy Conti and Paul Lo Duca. Mota tells Graziano how much he appreciates Pedro's mentorship…

“Pedro, he told me, 'I'm going to be
behind you,'” Mota said. “He said,
'I'll be watching all the pitches you throw.
It's going to be like you have two minds in your
head.' And he helped me tonight.”

The Mets picked had up Mota from the Indians back in August where he was struggling big time, but the Mets saw great potential in the young reliever, feeling that if reunited with his old catcher from Florida and Los Angeles he might improve along with the softer offense in the National League.

“You look at a guy with a six-plus ERA, you
don't know what he's going to do,” Mets GM
Omar Minaya said. “But the first time he pitched for
us, we knew we had something.”

Mota arrived in Flushing and found friends. There was Lo
Duca, the old friend. And there was Martinez, the new
friend. He watched Mota throw in the bullpen, and he spotted
a problem.

Pedro was able to pick out what may have caused the once promising hurler to lose his mojo.

“He was tipping his pitches, from his
mechanics,” Martinez said last night. “You could
tell what he was going to throw, just from his delivery.
When you see differences like that, a good hitter, a guy
like Pujols, he would just eat him up.”

So Martinez mentioned this, not just to Mota, but to Lo
Duca, pitching coach Rick Peterson and bullpen coach Guy
Conti. They all went out to the bullpen one day for an
intervention, and they all worked to fix Mota's
delivery so he wasn't tipping pitches anymore.

From that point on Mota was a different pitcher.

Mota is 3-0 with a 1.00 ERA in 18 appearances with the
Mets. In 18 innings, he gave up two runs on 10 hits, walked
just five and struck out 19. In the Division Series against
the Dodgers, he pitched two crucial innings in Game 1 and
two more in Game 3. And last night, with a two-run lead,
Willie Randolph called on Mota to pitch the eighth inning of
the latest biggest game of the year.

Mota appreciates the confidence Willie Randolph has put in him.

“Willie's given me so much confidence,”
Mota said. “He told me, 'We need you. We believe
in you. And we're going to give you the ball, so be
prepared.'”

Mota said he felt Randolph showed him support in Game 1
against the Dodgers. After Mota gave up three game-tying
runs in the seventh inning, Randolph left him in the game to
pitch to the dangerous Jeff Kent, and Mota struck him out.

“That meant a lot to me, that he had enough
confidence to leave me in,” Mota said.

Mota was the winning pitcher after the Mets came back,
and he hasn't given up a run in three innings since.

Mota shares with Graziano his exchange with Lo Duca last night.

With Eckstein on first base and the count 3-0 on Wilson,
Lo Duca went to the mound.

“He said, 'We gotta go after this
guy,'” Mota said. “He said, 'You
don't want to face Pujols with the go-ahead run at home
plate. Let's not lose this guy.'”

Mota would throw five more pitches to Wilson — two
called strikes, two foul balls and then the pop-up pitch.
One of those five pitches — nobody would say which one –
was called by Pedro Martinez, from the bench.

“At one point, I got Lo Duca's attention and, I
guess, made a suggestion,” Martinez said, smiling.

Lo Duca denied any knowledge of such an exchange, but he
smiled, too, in a way that made you think he wasn't
giving you the whole truth.

“I don't know about that,” he said.
“I was just putting down signs.”

It was Mota who spilled the beans. He's just happy
to have so much help.

“When you have somebody like that behind you,”
he said, pointing across the room at Martinez, “things
are gonna go good.”