By Steven Inman
As of now the Mets rotation will be Jon Niese on Opening Day followed by Shaun Marcum and Matt Harvey for the first series of the year vs. the Padres. Dillon Gee would pitch the first game of the Mets second series of the year which will be vs. the Miami Marlins. Then Jeremy Hefner would be the 5th starter although the Mets could skip him and go Niese again because they have an off day on April 2nd. Any optimistic speculation that Johan Santana would be ready for Opening Day has quickly deteriorated. There is no timetable for Santana to pitch in a spring training game at this point. The Mets wouldn’t need a 5th starter until April 10th against the Phillies so perhaps Santana is ready at that point.
This rotation has a lot of upside and could pretty good but unless David Wright and Daniel Murphy get healthy soon, the Mets are going to be losing a lot of low scoring games in early April.
This has been the way of the Mets for at least the last few years “losing a lot of low scoring ballgames” and the all too often BP implosion anytime from the 6th or 7th inning on. It seems that by making smart aquisitions, trades and signings that the Mets should have been able to have over come these obvious short comings by now. Other teams seem to be able to do this much more consistently than the Mets without seemingly depleting their reserve of minor league prospects. As this all too familiar scenario continues Mets fans continue to wait and wait for respectability. We should be there by now. For example, are the Nats, Braves and Phillies really so much smarter than the Mets ownership and FO?
Well Mike there is a simple explanation to this and thats money. The Mets havent been able to bring in the role players, bullpen guys that theyve needed because these guys are too risky for a team with limited financial resources. For example last year I was advocating bringing in Fernando Rodney but the Mets were never going to do that because they werent going to pay a guy 3+ million coming off a bad year after already bringing in Frank Francisco.. When the Mets do make those investments (Francisco, Rauch,) They havent worked out but they havent taken many chances. Thanks for the comment Mike!