The Mets should know the status of Pedro’s injury by this afternoon. The Mets front office is reported to be actively looking at options to replace him in the starting rotations. The options reportedly include players currently under contract such as Nelson Figueroa, the recently waived Brian Stokes, and Jorge Sosa.
There are also free agent possibilities such as Claudio Vargas and Jeff Weaver.
We should get some news soon.
Olney talks about the possibilities for replacing Pedro Martinez.
http://sports.espn.go.com/broadband/player.swf?mediaId=3324920
At this point, we don’t know how severe Pedro Matinez’ hamstring injury is. He’ll have an MRI and we’ll know soon how much time that he’ll miss. I have to mention some concern that Pedro, Brian Schneider, and Ramon Castro have all had hamstring injuries over the last few weeks. Remember last spring when the Yankees were getting pulled hamstrings and they blamed on the strength and conditioning coach? If not, read here about how the Yankees fired Marty Miller last May after several players had hamstring injuries.I wonder if there’s anything to the strength and conditioning with the Mets this season. Rick Slate is the Mets strength and conditioning coordinator. I would think that he’ll receive some scrutiny over the coming days, especially if Pedro is on the disabled list for an extended period of time.
The good news about Pedro’s injury is that the Mets already have an extra starter on the roster, Mike Pelfrey. He’s currently slotted to be the fifth starter but the Mets don’t need him until April 12th because they have off-days on Thursday and next Monday before the home opener on April 8th. El Duque’s trip to the disabled list was retroactive to March 29th so he could make that start on the 12th.
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The bad news is that the Mets huge crowd for the home opener would be treated to seeing Mike Pelfrey instead of Pedro Martinez. What a let down that is! I wouldn’t be too happy if I had tickets for the home opener right now. Pelfrey is easily shaken as it is, having to pitch in front of a sold out home opening crowd is not a good situation for Pelfrey. That’s certainy not a good situation for the Mets or the Shea opening day fans.
I’ll warn you up front that this isn’t a 100% Mets-related post. But Doc Gooden does figure prominently here so you’ll understand why I’m writing it.
This is a link to a really long blog post by Joe Posnanski of the Kansas City Star. The post reviews the 100 game winning pitchers by age 26. The prompt for the post is C.C. Sabathia winning his 100th game last season in which he turned 27.
Although it’s a long post, it’s a great read. It’s really eye opening how many innings that pitchers used to log. They must have used tape to keep their arms attached to their shoulders. Some of these guys were throwing 300 inning seasons.
I noticed that The Hardball Times was linking to this blog today too. My buddy John emailed it to me this morning before THT got to it though. You can read the blog post here.
Sports Illustrated’s Jon Heyman is reporting that the Mets management gathered in Port St. Lucie today to make decisions about the fifth starter and left field. The “unnamed” source close to the situation says that it’s likely that Mike Pelfrey will become the fifth starter despite his shaky spring. He’ll have a short leash with El Duque and Jorge Sosa ready to jump into the rotation if things go wrong.
According to the source, Angel Pagan has the inside track to get the bulk of playing time in left field until Moises Alou gets back approximately three weeks into the season. Pagan has been on fire offensively this spring but it may be an anomaly. Only time will tell.
Relief pitcher Steve Register was waived yesterday. According to Rule 5 regulations he can’t participate in team activities until waivers closes on Friday. The Mets took him from the Colorado Rockies and will have to offer him back if no teams claims him from waivers.
Register has had a good spring but isn’t a major factor in the Mets plans this season. If he signs a minor league contract and gives the Mets the flexibility to move him down to the minors, if needed, he’ll be a much more valuable player.
The Mets made the right decision today to start John Maine in the Civil Rights Game against the White Sox on Saturday. It’s an important game for Major League Baseball and the Mets owe it to everyone involved to send their regular players to Memphis. The game is bigger than the desire to keep Maine in Florida working out.
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The Mets Report 