Good Things Happen in Threes

By Jack Flynn
Posted Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Ready or not, the Jonathan Niese Era begins next Tuesday in Milwaukee. The entire 2008 season will be riding on how he is handled over the next five weeks.

John Maine’s second-half shoulder woes finally landed him on the disabled list this week and the soreness he’s been feeling will likely sideline Maine for the rest of the season. Niese, the 21-year-old rookie who began his fourth professional season in Double-A Binghamton earlier this year, has been tapped to take Maine’s place in the Mets’ starting rotation.

As relentlessly flammable as the bullpen continues to be, Maine’s absence may nevertheless be the single biggest impediment to the Mets’ playoff chances this year. Bullpens are only given the chance to blow games when starters give them the opportunity to do so. As Mike Pelfrey has shown in his last two starts, the safest route to victory is when the ball remains in the hand of the man who started the game.

There is simply no replacing a starter of Maine’s caliber at this point in the season – the Mets can only hope to get a reasonable approximation of his best stuff from his replacement. Niese is undoubtedly the Mets’ best hope for that; his 28 starts across two minor league levels this season have produced a 3.18 ERA, a 1.28 WHIP and the feeling that he is ready to succeed at the major league level.

Niese won’t be making his debut until September 2 – each of the four starters ahead of him in the rotation will make at least one more appearance before the rookie left-hander is handed the ball and asked to shut down the potent lineup of the Milwaukee Brewers on their home turf.

From that point forward, Mets manager Jerry Manuel has to think long and hard about strategically shortening his rotation throughout the month of September. Yes, it’s always exciting when a young player makes his first appearances on the big-league level, and of course there is a natural curiosity about whether or not Niese’s appearances on this grand stage will be like catching lightning in a bottle for the Mets.

But the stakes are simply too high to entrust six September starts to a hotshot rookie in the heat of a pennant race. It is Manuel’s responsibility to make sure that Niese’s expected contribution to the Mets’ playoff push is minimal.

This simply is no time for experimentation with an untested minor leaguer. The first five months of the 2008 season have borne out sustained excellence from Johan Santana, the impressive emergence of Pelfrey and (after some early-season hiccups) fleeting brilliance from Oliver Perez.

They are the three men who can pitch the Mets into the postseason, and Manuel will need to lean on each of them heavily to hold off the Philadelphia Phillies in the National League East.

There are 29 games left in the 2008 season and if Manuel is clever, he can give the ball to his three best starters in 21 of those games. Manuel can do this while also practically eliminating the need for a fifth starter after Niese’s first start, if he is willing to resort to a four-man rotation in the final week of the season.

The Mets have already taken the first step toward such a plan, taking advantage of Thursday’s off-day to skip Maine’s former spot in the rotation. The schedule is extremely kind to the Mets between September 3 and September 12, with three off days that will allow Manuel to skip Niese entirely and to minimize appearances from the fourth starter Pedro Martinez.

By simply using the three of them with the standard four days’ rest, Manuel can pitch Santana, Pelfrey and Perez ten times in a 12-game stretch between now and the 12th. Failure to do so on the manager’s part should be a fireable offense.

Manuel could then shift Niese into a long reliever’s role until September 16, when he would likely be called upon to make his second major league start against the Washington Nationals. The pressure would be off until then, and the Nationals’ anemic offense is exactly the type that a young guy like Niese could be successful against.

Martinez, who took a step back in nearly blowing a seven-run lead on his own on Tuesday night, is likely to benefit from getting skipped in the next turn through the rotation and resting up for a September 7 appearance against the Phillies. From there, he can also enjoy an extra day of rest before a September 13 start against the Atlanta Braves.

Manuel would likely return to the standard five-man rotation beginning with the opener of a three-game series at home with the Braves on September 12. It would take nearly two full turns through the rotation until the real day of reckoning – September 21 against Atlanta at Turner Field.

Even by strategically skipping Martinez and Niese in the early part of the month, no Met starter would need to pitch on short rest before this point. But on the 21st, Manuel will be faced with a difficult choice – with eight games left in the season, does he drop Niese (or for that matter, Martinez) from the rotation entirely and go with a four-man rotation? Or does Manuel run Niese out there twice under the most pressure-packed of circumstances?

The answer, of course, will depend on where the Mets are in the N.L. East standings at that point. It should not be too much to ask for Santana, Pelfrey and Perez to make two starts on short rest in the final week of the season, especially if the team’s playoff hopes are hanging in the balance. Martinez, if he is still the fourth starter at that point, would have to be paired with Niese, Brian Stokes or another long reliever to get through his two appearances. It would be a stretch to ask for more than five innings from the faded superstar in either start.

The alternative would be two starts from Niese – on September 21 and again on September 26 against the Florida Marlins – and only one more start apiece for Pelfrey and Perez. If the Mets are trailing the Phillies at that point, it’s hard to imagine such a set-up being the recipe for a grand comeback.

If fortune does indeed favor the bold, it’s up to Jerry Manuel to give his team the best chance to make the playoffs, even if it means defying convention. The standard five-man rotation throughout the month of September is simply unacceptable – Manuel owes it to his team to the type of calculated risks that could lead to big rewards.

Jack Flynn continues to dream of the day when a manager is bold enough to use a "four and a half man" rotation throughout the season. One day, he's going to get around to explaining what that means on his blog, Productive Outs and Crackerjack.