The Mets have typically had two pregame stretches. One at 4:40 for non-starters and the other at 4:55 for starters.
Jerry Manuel plans to combine the two into stretches into one.
Yesterday Manuel talked about perhaps changing things with the Mets, and while they were small, he at least began implementing and talking about some of them today at Shea. And he hinted a bigger change might be on the way. Sunday may be an ultimatum on Oliver Perez’s future in the Mets rotation.
After yesterday’s 11-0 beating, Manuel said he may soon consider making dramatic changes to the team, and it seemed as if Perez had a good chance of being the initial casualty. He was atrocious again last night, and taking him out of the rotation seemed to be a legitimate possibility.
But Perez will get another shot this Sunday at Shea against the Yankees. The main reason why? It’s this Sunday at Shea against the Yankees.
“Looking back at Oliver Perez, it appears as though the bigger the game, the better the performance,” Manuel said. “And you can’t get no bigger game than the Yankees on Sunday afternoon at Shea Stadium. Other than obviously a championship-type deal.
“So that would be a very good time for us to make a decision one way or the other, evaluate the performance. And not to say that that’s going to be the telltale of what we’re going to do with him but as far as watching and see how he performs, that would be a very good barometer for him.”
Perez has a 5.29 ERA this year, but he’s 4-1 with a 2.88 ERA against the Yanks in his career. Still, if he doesn’t turn it around Sunday, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see the Mets make a change and bring up someone like Triple-A righty Tony Armas Jr., who’s pitched well at New Orleans. Perez can’t be sent down to the minors, so the Mets would have to use him in the bullpen.
As for the stretches, Manuel believes one stretch is better for the team than two.
“One thing I want to do is, I want to make sure we all stretch at the same time,” he said. “I’m trying to preach team unity as much as possible. I don’t like the guys that play stretch later, the guys that do this, do that later. I’m trying to preach unity.”
Manuel also wants the team to change some of its fundamentals. Today the Mets were on the field early in pregame, with the pitchers doing fielding work and coaches hitting balls to some outfielders and infielders.
“We’re just trying to get some fundamentals out of the way, trying to set a foundation on how we’re going to do things going forward,” Manuel said. “Just going over some of the fundamentals that probably differ a little bit from what we’ve done before. Some of the ideas that I have that could be a little different.”
Manuel added, “We’re going to put in some different, say, like pickoff moves, those types of things. Stress them a little bit. And these are things that we had all planned before Willie [Randolph] left anyway.”