Josh Thole knew his honeymoon could not last forev

Josh Thole knew his honeymoon could not last forever. He was not referring to his December marriage to wife Kathryn, either.Rather, the catcher meant his can-do-no-wrong relationship with New York Mets fans inevitably would run its course.Not that he expected anything less. After all, New York Mets Jerseys Thole has a .253 average, major league-high seven passed balls and 18 of 22 runners have successfully stolen against him."I feel like the honeymoon stage in New York is over," Thole volunteered.He then recalled popping out on a bunt attempt and heading back to the dugout."All I see is 15 people yelling and screaming to me," Thole said. "You sit back and go, 'That's the big leagues. This is what it's about.'"Even after knuckleballer R.A. Dickey departed Tuesday's game, Thole's struggles persisted. He flat-out missed one eighth-inning pitch from Jason Isringhausen to Cody Ross that might have been called a strike if cleanly caught and framed for the umpire. At the plate, Thole left the bases loaded in the ninth inning by grounding into a double play.
Manager Terry Collins then gave Thole consecutive games off to regroup. Collins expects Thole will return to the starting lineup Friday for the series opener against the Los Angeles Dodgers at Citi Field.The prevailing theory is that Thole has displayed bad habits while catching the entire staff -- such as stabbing at pitches with his glove -- because of his involvement catching Dickey's knuckleball. And because Thole does not have the catching experience to fall back upon,Abercrombie Fitch Jeans, he may be more susceptible to drifting away from proper technique.Thole was a catcher through high school while growing up in Breese, Ill. But the 13th-round pick in 2005 caught a total of 26 games during his first three professional seasons. He returned from first base to primarily catching in May 2008 after the first-string catcher at Class A St. Lucie got off to a terrible start at the plate.Now, the Mets plan to limit Thole's catching of Dickey's knuckleball outside of games to guard against him getting into bad habits."It's a completely different thing," Debus said, contrasting catching Dickey's knuckleball with receiving traditional offerings. "I'm not sure that's not screwing him up sometimes. There's a lot of stabbing and a lot of grabbing stuff [with the knuckleball]. And that's what he's doing. Maybe we've just got to limit the amount of times he catches it, like in bullpens.
As for Collins holding him out of the starting lineup in consecutive games, only in the latter game with the Mets facing a left-hander, Thole said: "Don't get me wrong, nobody wants to have a day off, much less two days off. But I went down to the bullpen and caught some of the guys down there [Chris Young and Ryota Igarashi] and just got used to seeing the ball, catching the baseball, that kind of stuff. MLB Jerseys From China That was more beneficial than me just sitting in the dugout, not doing anything. I caught some bullpens yesterday, caught off the machine, and I started feeling, I guess you can say, back to normal. I just think it was a bad streak. My receiving mechanics are off. It's making me late to balls.Dickey, like Thole, was not so sure his knuckleball was screwing Thole up, but did explain the difference in catching techniques."When you catch a knuckleballer, you really have to wait for the ball to come to you. You can't go out to get it or it'll break and you'll be chasing balls all day," Dickey said. "The set-up is a little bit different. You want to be in the most comfortable position that allows your hands to really work, whereas with a conventional guy you can really be locked in and stable. I [require] a bigger glove, one that he may not be as comfortable with.