WE could talk about the Mets and the wild card. We could also talk about the Tooth Fairy or Jose Reyes playing again this year. You know, things adults shouldn’t believe in.
TONIGHT’S PREVIEW: Diamondbacks at Mets
Let’s put it this way: Evel Knievel never attempted anything on his Harley-Davidson as difficult as jumping seven teams in 58 games with Daniel Murphy as your cleanup hitter.
These daily injury updates the Mets provide are going to prove as useful as an umbrella in a tornado. It is nice that J.J. Putz threw 20 pitches off the mound yesterday and is aiming for a late August return. It is more relevant that Mike Pelfrey needed 107 pitches over five innings against a lineup arguably worse than the Mets’.
And we don’t mean relevant for 2009. Again, there is a better chance of Tony Bernazard and Willie Randolph skipping around the bases arm-in-arm at Citi Field as there is of the Mets claiming the wild card. Reality alert: They have lost two of three at home to the Diamondbacks, and it is Dan Haren vs. Nelson Figueroa today.
So next year has come early, albeit at 2009 new-stadium prices. If you had on rose-colored glasses looking toward the future, you saw Jeff Francoeur again flash a power bat (four homers in 19 games as a Met) and strong defense during Arizona’s 5-2 win yesterday. You saw two more hits from a revived Luis Castillo, whose current contract likely means he is back again next season (sorry Orlando Hudson fans).
But the most important player on the field for the 2010 Mets was Pelfrey. So this was another day in which he left Mets fans wondering just how high his ceiling is.
Pelfrey’s stuff — 92-95 mph fastball, high-80s darting slider — was good and he was facing a bad offense with Miguel Montero playing the Murphy part of cleanup impersonator. Yet Pelfrey ended up with the kind of mixed-bag performance that has so earmarked his season.
He retired the first five hitters, including striking out the side in the first. Then, with two outs in the second, he went, in order, hit batsman, walk, hit batsman. He delivered another 1-2-3 frame in the third, and then faced 13 batters during the fourth and fifth innings, allowed seven to reach and permitted three runs. And the whole time his pitch count soared, giving Jerry Manuel the impetus to pinch-hit for Pelfrey with one out and the tying run on third in the fifth.
“I need to be better,” said Pelfrey (8-7, 4.75 ERA). “I’m not satisfied how it is going. I need to be better. I need to be more consistent. I know that drives the coaches crazy.”
There is no doubt Pelfrey belongs in a major league rotation. But where? He was probably miscast as a No. 2 starter this year. However, he just might suffer the same miscasting again next year, like seeing Keanu Reaves as a leading man in yet another movie.
Do you really expect the Madoff Mets to buy, say, John Lackey this offseason? Or that their prospects will become so much more alluring in December than they were in July, moving the Blue Jays to push the Mets to first in line for the Roy Halladay Winter Jamboree?
Instead, what you see now is probably what you get for 2010: Johan Santana and mystery. The flummoxing Oliver Perez and the fragile John Maine, the neophyte Jonathon Niese and a new grab-bag of broken toys from the Livan Hernandez/Tim Redding/Freddy Garcia aisle.
Hey, let’s assume the Mets even find a way to airlift a true No. 2 starter. Are we positive Pelfrey is the No. 3 for a championship-caliber team?
“He can be,” Jerry Manuel said. “No question for me. He could be that guy, but right now he is a work in progress. But he has the stuff to be that guy.” For now, however, he is a No. 2 starter in the way that Daniel Murphy is a No. 4 hitter — by default.