Mets Week Five: Starting pitchers wanted, any offer considered (Aaron Heilman need not apply)

Due to a rash of recent (and not so recent) injuries, the Mets are down to three starting pitchers not named Jose Lima. Two of those pitchers, Tom Glavine and Pedro Martinez, are pitching exceptionally well and would not surprise many observers by continuing to do so. Still, that is clearly not enough pitchers, especially given the important stretch of games the Mets are about to embark upon.

Unfortunately, the only options the Mets have to fill these holes, or at least the only options they believe they have, are the likes of Lima and Jeremi Gonzalez. Cuban defector Alay Soler may get a shot at some point if he can keep dominating minor league hitters much younger than himself, but he probably won't get called up before this weekend. Aaron Heilman wants to start and has succeeded as a starter in the past, however briefly, but the Mets don't want to mess up their good bullpen by removing him from it. If someone can explain to me why it matters how good your bullpen is when your starting pitcher gives up five runs in the first five innings, I'd like to hear it. But for now, it appears the Mets' motto should be "Pedro and Glavine, and pray for..." well, if I think of a severe weather phenomenon that rhymes with "Glavine", I'll let you know.

Aside from that, the Mets had a pretty good week. They won four out of six games, including two more against the quickly fading Braves. And the offense came to life by the end of the weak, led by a newly healthy Carlos Beltran. The Met center fielder is now hitting .286/.441/.671, which is apparently enough for New York to stop booing him. Even after he comes back to earth a bit, he appears like he can be the sort of core lineup force that he was signed to be. If he and Carlos Delgado hit well enough to make David Wright the third best hitter on the team, this offense could be very impressive.

And, yes, another Met who had a good week was Jorge Julio. Julio's been very impressive lately, but he certainly hasn't reached the point where I have confidence in him. Even Victor Zambrano had a good month once in a while. It is apparent that when Julio's at his best, he can be very effective, but his career history is not that of a man who's at his best for very often or very long. Last year he had an ERA of 0.71 in April (13.2 innings) and 2.19 in July (12.1 innings). He still finished the year with an ERA of 5.90. This year he has a ridiculous number of strikeouts (29) over a small sample of innings (16.1), which bodes well, but he's also given up four home runs already, which is less encouraging. Maybe Julio has finally turned a corner, or maybe he can catch lightning in a bottle over a small number of innings like Roberto Hernandez did last year. But right now I'm putting more stock in the fact he hasn't posted an ERA under four since 2002 than what he's done over his last ten or fifteen innings.

So now the Mets and their incomplete pitching staff begin the toughest stretch of games they've faced so far this season. The Cardinals and Yankees await them next week, and this weekend they'll try to win another series against the Brewers. But first they must travel to Philadelphia to face the resurgent Phillies. Luckily, the Mets' rotation is properly aligned so that the real major league starting pitchers they have will start all three games. This series should provide a good early test for both teams. But even more importantly, Phillies fans, the Mets will finish this series in first place regardless of what happens.