For a change, the Mets' biggest headache did not wait until
the end of the game when the bullpen coughed it up. This time, what really had them going to the medicine cabinet was the talk before the first inning, when manager Jerry Manuel admitted that John Maine might not work again this season.
There are only a couple of strategies a team can use in that situation.
"Aleve, Advil," Maine said.
He actually was musing about how he might be able to keep pitching despite the bone spur in his right shoulder, but it all boils down to the same thing. The Mets can get along with their iffy bullpen as long as their starting pitching is the best in the National League, which it has been lately. But an iffy bullpen and iffy rotation together make an awful pair, like dry grass and matches.
That is what the Mets are looking at if Maine is down.
Not that this is an untreatable migraine. Only three short days ago, you heard from this peanut stand that the Mets just seem to have a sixth sense or a ninth life that will get them to October. No retraction on that.
Still, we have to acknowledge how fragile their season is. It is only common sense: The less the Mets get from their starters, the more they have to go to a bullpen that has a big hole where closer Billy Wagner used to be. And the more the bullpen is in the game, the better the chance the Mets will realize that Maine rhymes with pain.
A razor-thin margin for error just became laser thin.
"True," Manuel said. "But I think the good thing is we do have some people performing. We have played as a team, for a long period of time, good baseball. Right now is not the time to be not executing pitches or not having quality at bats, it's just not the time. But we are still in a good spot."
That would be first place, which the Mets held by a game heading into the Phillies' meeting with the Dodgers last night. The manager was firm in saying starting pitching is the one thing that has kept the Mets from sliding.
"We have to keep pitching," he said.
If they don't, they will have more weekends like the one that just ended. They lost their mojo when Maine came up very short against the Astros on Saturday night. It was such a strained outing that Manuel mentioned yesterday morning that the corner of 2008 and Maine might be a dead end. At best, they can expect five innings from him on any given day.
"They asked me what I want to do and I want to pitch," Maine said, adding that he has been told he will not harm his shoulder, that it is just a matter of tolerating pain. "It didn't stop me so far. There's only two months left. No big deal."
Maybe, but will five innings be enough? Not if the next guy in the rotation, Oliver Perez, squanders two leads and fails to get deep into the seventh inning, which is what happened yesterday.
Sure, we all are going to point out that Aaron Heilman turned a smudge into a mess and that Pedro Feliciano kissed the day goodbye by giving up two homers in the 10th. But it was Perez who put the bullpen in position to screw up.
Without Maine, there would be more pressure on everybody.
"He's been really good for us," Perez said after the 6-4 loss. "Right now, we have to do the job. When we have the ball, we have to try to win games."
Lots of luck, counting on Perez to be consistently excellent. From here, it looks like there will be many more headaches.
"It won't be easy," Feliciano said. "It will be exciting, and we'll be fine."
To their credit, the Mets have endured plenty this season. So when general manager Omar Minaya says, "We'll find a way," he gets the benefit of the doubt.
"If you had told me that we would have had Moises Alou, Ryan Church, [Luis] Castillo, [Billy] Wagner, Pedro [Martinez] all out for a long period of time and we'd be in first place today, I would have signed up," Minaya said. "And I'm still signed up."
Fair enough. This observer is not jumping off the bandwagon, only admitting it is going to be a bumpy ride.
