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Bullpen Exhaustion, Aaron Heilman and the Mets Classics

Tonight was a bad game, mainly because you can deal with one night when the offense struggles, but two nights starts to make a bad habit of things. At least the Mets are going on the road to three great hitters ballparks. The other issue is bullpen fatigue.

I think Schoeneweis was the right move in that situation. I think he sucks, and I wish he wasn’t on the team anymore, but given that he is on the team, and you can’t not use guys on the team, it was probably the right move. The problem now becomes fatigue. Two extra inning games have started to tax the bullpen. Willie’s kept his starters in longer than I think he would have probably would have any other time, to help save the bullpen for a taxing weekend in Philadelphia. The only other option I see for that inning is Aaron Sele, and I wonder if they’re entertaining the idea of him starting one of Friday’s games, and holding him back. Aaron Sele however hasn’t exactly been an excellent reliever anyway.

I think the Mets need to make some changes. I know it’s tough to find bullpen help, and I think Omar is working on it, but it can’t happen overnight. Maybe we traded away too many relief prospects in the spring this year. I think it’s drawing to a time where you have to do something with Schoeneweis. I doubt he can be optioned down to New Orleans, and from all accounts putting him on the disabled list isn’t going to heal his tendon, if it’s even the tendon that’s making him suck. I want to see some of these relievers that are down in AAA, if we can somehow get them up here on the roster. The Zephyrs have a couple of guys that might be decent. Willie Collazo has a 2.75 ERA, Steve Schmoll has a 3.18 ERA, and even Jon Adkins’ ERA is 3.68. Now, I saw some of Adkins in spring training, but I really don’t know anything about these guys, but in my mind they can’t pitch worse than Schoeneweis, or even Aaron Sele, who I think at least has options.

I’m kind of amused that Aaron Heilman has six wins and leagues the majors in relief wins. He has as many as the rest of the Mets relievers combined. He wants to be a starter, but it’s arguable that he’d actually have less wins if he was in the rotation. It’s probably just a statistical quirk, but I find it amusing.

The Mets NLDS win over the Dodgers is going to be played on Mets Classics on SNY. I watched one of these games a couple of weeks ago, and it was fun to watch, except for one thing. Especially as a replay, the ESPN and Fox announcers really take some of the juice out of watching these games. Part of the charm is having the guys that we know and have been doing the games all year, continue into the playoffs. I wonder if it’s possible to mute these games, and splice in the audio stream from the radio broadcast. I’d much rather listen to Tom, Howie and Gary’s radio broadcast while watching these replays.

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Power Depletion

The Mets offense was shut down for the third time this week, this time it wasn’t against a Cy Young award winner, but Doug Davis. We can lose Jose Valentin for a while, no big deal. Moises Alou goes down? Well we expected that, and we’ve got a bunch of outfield prospects we want to play with, and it’s always nice to get Endy Chavez some regular time. Shawn Green’s going on the DL? Well maybe one of these prospects actually gets hot for a while, or David Newhan prospers with some regular starts like Jose Valentin did last year. Carlos Beltran bruised his knee? Well now it’s starting to look a little darker. Our offense was very depleted this weekend, but we never made it easy. Oliver Perez and John Maine both pitched well to start, but ultimately fell off the pace before the opposing pitcher did. The Mets failed to work counts to try to get into the bullpen to find somebody hittable, and they weren’t able to capitalize on most of the few situations that presented themselves. Still, 35-20 is a great record.

The weekend can basically be summed up by the 8th inning on Sunday. The Mets had four regulars playing; Reyes walked, Wright singles, and Lo Duca walked. This shows how the Mets regular offense can manage to get on base, while the rest of the fill-ins couldn’t get them home.

Now lets get to the optimism. The Mets pitched very well. John Maine and Oliver Perez kept them in games, which is what we’ve wanted out of them. Maine’s been showing that ability all season, while Perez has a couple of meltdowns that were problematic. Him being able to stay in the game, even after some struggles is important And then there is Jorge Sosa. What a great year he’s having after not making the team. He had one poor start, which is probably the only thing that’ll keep him from winning pitcher of the month for May. The real question, while way too premature, is what happens when Pedro returns? I know the Mets signed Aaron Sele to a minor league contract, but I have no idea if that means he’s able to be optioned down to New Orleans if they wanted to switch Sosa into that role when Pedro returned. Fortunately, it’s a good problem to have, and it’s Omar Minaya and Willie Randolph’s problem to deal with. Another consideration is to shop Sosa around, but I don’t know that the Mets have any glaring holes that are desperate for filling. Getting some minor league depth in pitching or second base is always nice, but it’s not a priority or urgency in any way.

Beltran will be back Tuesday, hopefully Alou will be too. Valentin will also be back before long. It seems clear that Carlos Gomez is going down, and at least Newhan or Ben Johnson. It would also appear that Ruben Gotay will go down when Valentin returns, as you can only have so many back-up infielder bench guys, and we all know that Franco’s not going anywhere. Once the lineup starts coming back together, I expect the Mets to put together a real win streak, where they go out and dominate the competition.

I probably won’t be at Shea for the Philly series, despite being at over a third of the Met home games this season, which means my 13th Met game probably won’t be until June 23rd as part of my Saturday pack. Going three weeks without being at a game almost feels weird with the rate I’ve been in attendance over the past two years.