I hate to say if for Johnny Maine, but I'm thinking our four-man playoff rotation will leave him on the outside looking in:
Pedro
Glavine
Duque
Trashel
Trax is useless in the bullpen, as he's already proven. He can't get loose quickly and can't adapt to having his "routine" broken. Will Willie upset the apple cart by leaving a long time veteran home, denying him a late-career playoff run, for a rookie? Doubt it, especially since Maine has been better but not decisively so. And Willie loves veterans.
So who is in the bullpen if the Mets hold 12 pitchers?
Long guys: Oliver, Maine
6-7 innings: Bradford, Feliciano, Mota, R. Hernandez
8th inning: Heilman
9th: Wagner
Very interesting question: do the mets carry 12 pitchers? With lots of travel off-days in the playoffs, I doubt it. Which means one these pitchers is getting left off the post-season roster.
Who will it be? Maine? Mota? R. Hernandez? Or does Maine get in the rotation and Trashel gets left home?
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Let's start with who is definitely in:
Pedro
Glavine
Oliver
Bradford
Feliciano
Heilman
Wagner
Mota
Beyond that I'd say all other slots are open. None of the other pitchers has been consistently solid. Most likely Willie will choose experience and put Duque and Trax on the starting rotation. He'll figure Maine, Pelfrey, etc. will have their chances over the next 3-5 years, and if Duque and Trax fail to deliver Randolph's position of choosing experience in pressure playoff situation is always defensible. I think if Maine had a stronger outing last night, he would've edged out either trax or duque.
I think Maine does have another 3-4 outings, so there's still plenty of time for him to prove something. At the end of the day, I expect Willie to play it safe, unless Maine puts together another 25 inning scoreless streak.
Maine was Shanghai'd by Wright's 1st inning error last night. Without that he would have had 2 runs in 5 IP, and probably would have gone deeper in the game.
Yup, I saw that blown throw by Wright, it definitely cost Maine two runs. I agree, there is still a reasonable chance Maine edges out one of duque or trax from starting rotation, depending on how everyone does in the next 3 weeks.
El Duque made his case tonight.
I think duque has to get the nod over trax, and probably over maine. You know trax is always going to stay true to his 5 ERA - no more, no less - whereas Duque can pitch some gems that make him look like our ace. It would be nice though if he were more consistent, and didn't suffer hideous meltdowns every few games. Hopefully it's just that he was tired, and with good rest he'll be dominant. We'll need the kind of performance he gave last night to stand a chance against AL team in WS.
if today's game doesn't rule trax off the list, i don't know what will. I generally agree that experience should get the nod in a playoff situation, but at this point i could not support a decision to make trax one of our starting 4.
The scary thing for Trax is that if he's not a starter, there's a real chance he won't be on the playoff roster at all.
I agree, if he stinks as a starter, he's even more useless out of the pen.
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