MLB

TERRIBLE TIM OUTINGS SHOW, PEDRO OPTION SHOULD BE CONSIDERED

THE METS and the Phillies both will be in the market for a starting pitcher.

METS BLOG

The difference is the Phillies will be seeking a top-of-the-rotation guy to replace Brett Myers, likely down for the year as he awaits surgery to repair a torn labrum, while the Mets inevitably will be searching soon for a bottom of the rotation guy to step in for Tim Redding, who didn’t have a clue yesterday afternoon, much less an out pitch.

Hmmm, wonder which role Pedro Martinez might be able to fill.

It was a tough day all around at the new ballyard in Queens. It was tough for Redding, who yielded seven runs on eight hits in four-plus innings after an almost equally horrid performance at Fenway on Sunday. It was tough for the Mets, who lost their first on the homestand by 7-3 after taking the opening four games. It was tough on the fans who paid Neiman-Marcus prices to see a thrift-shop lineup.

You don’t get a refund at a Broadway show if the star is replaced by the understudy, and you don’t get a discount at the ballpark if the home team manager gives necessary rest to his marquee names, the way Jerry Manuel did yesterday by sitting both David Wright and Gary Sheffield.

Really, Manuel had no choice. Sheffield, who had started seven straight in left, needed a rest following Friday’s night’s 11-inning victory. Wright, too, needed the day to clear his mind, as much as anything, coming off three games in which he struck out eight times in 15 at-bats, running his season total to 52 K’s in 176 at-bats. He’s hitting .335 but has just three homers, two at Citi Field.

The Mets better hope they don’t have a developing situation reminiscent of what the Yankees faced three decades ago when Bobby Murcer lost his powers when the team moved out of the old Yankee Stadium (the Old, Old Yankee Stadium, that is) and into Shea for a couple of years.

“I know David wants to do well for the home crowd,” said Manuel, who had hoped to give Wright his first day off in Pittsburgh this week. “Some guys go to the plate and see hits out there, and some don’t.

“The more David plays here, the more confidence he’ll get.”

The more the Mets trot Redding out to the mound, the more difficulty they likely are to encounter. The 31-year-old has allowed 13 runs, all earned, on 16 hits in 82⁄3 innings over his last two starts. He’ll get another one, but Manuel sure didn’t seem committed beyond much more than that.

“That depends on . . . if he’s as ineffective as he was today,” Manuel said. “At this level there comes a point where if you continue to be ineffective . . . We’ll give him the ball again and see where he is.”

Redding’s implosion doesn’t signal a crisis. Fifth starters have games like this. That’s why they’re fifth starters. But the Mets have been living large off fourth starter Livan Hernandez’s surprising effectiveness. If Hernandez, 4-1 with a 4.28 ERA, suffers the same second-half reversal he did in each of the previous two seasons, the rotation will be too thin.

Oliver Perez won’t be coming to the rescue, er, to Queens anytime soon, either, not with the Mets revealing that the lefty is again suffering from patella tendonitis. Perez has been sent to Port St. Lucie.

So the Mets will be scouring the market that always features bottom-of-the-rotation starters who make too much money. They might look to Boston, which has an excess, but what would they have to deal in order to be able to come away with, say, Tim Wakefield?

We know this. With Fernando and Ramon currently on the roster, the addition of Pedro, at home in the Dominican and waiting for the call, would make the Mets a three-Martinez team.

larry.brooks@nypost.com