Not Ready For Prime Time

By Jack Flynn
Posted Wednesday, September 3, 2008

Welcome to the big leagues, rook.

Milwaukee Brewers second baseman Rickie Weeks took the second pitch of Jon Niese’s major league career on Tuesday night and deposited it over the fence, just a few feet beyond the outstretched glove of left fielder Nick Evans. Any dreams of a memorable maiden voyage for the rookie left hander evaporated soon after, and Niese was forced to hand the ball back to Mets manager Jerry Manuel after giving up five straight hits to lead off the fourth inning.

It was an inauspicious debut for Niese, who was out of the game long before the Mets put the final touches on a 6-5 win over Milwaukee. He was spared the loss only because the Mets scored runs early on and because Carlos Beltran threw out JJ Hardy trying to score the go-ahead run from second base on a single in Niese’s final inning of work. The final line for Niese included 11 baserunners in 3-plus innings, certainly not the type of appearance the Mets were hoping for.

But in retrospect, the deck was stacked against Niese from the outset. The Brewers are nobody’s idea of a slouch offensively and have been bashing left-handed pitching all season (a .274/.351/.470 line against southpaws going into last night’s game, as opposed to .251/.319/.431 against righties). Niese made an abbreviated start for New Orleans last Friday night, pitching just 2.2 innings to stay on course for Milwaukee, but he could be forgiven for being a little rusty after what amounted to a nine-day layoff.

The Mets have put young starters in worse positions before – think of poor Philip Humber’s late September start against the Nationals on 15 days’ rest last season. Still, it just wasn’t realistic to expect a quality start on the road against a playoff contender from a 21-year-old rookie who had previously spent the entire 2007 season in the Florida State League.

So what’s next for Niese? That remains to be seen. The rookie bobbed and weaved through the first three innings of last night’s game, showing signs of major league stuff while nevertheless having difficulty harnessing it. He might have modest success against a punchless lineup if the Mets were to give him a second start, but Niese isn’t ready for big league hitters just yet. Don’t expect to see him pitch another important inning in 2008, and buy tickets at your nearest Triple-A ballpark if you want to see Niese pitch in 2009.

An odd quirk in the September schedule gives the Mets three days off between now and September 12, rendering the need for a fifth starter practically negligible. Manuel has the chance to use a four-man rotation of Oliver Perez, Mike Pelfrey, Pedro Martinez and Johan Santana for another two weeks while keeping everyone on full rest, and he would be crazy not to do so.

The Mets surely aren’t lacking for candidates in the fifth starter’s role when the time comes, especially not after calling up six pitchers on Monday to give Manuel a seemingly endless number of match-up options out of the bullpen. The two most likely choices to start are Nelson Figueroa, who was recalled just before the rosters expanded on Monday, or reclamation project Brandon Knight.

Figueroa pitched decently in relief on Tuesday night and had two strong starts back in April for the Mets. He seems like the more likely pick, if for no other reason than because he has been around the team longer. Knight has made just one appearance in New York this season, overcoming early trouble to give the Mets five serviceable innings in an emergency start right before leaving to pitch for the Olympic team. It is doubtful that Manuel will have seen enough to trust Knight with a start so close to the end of the season.

We know that the fifth starter won’t be Brian Stokes, who has been heroically worked to the bone out of the bullpen after making an emergency start on August 9. He was a punching bag for American League hitters while pitching for Tampa Bay last season, but Stokes has overcome his extreme platoon splits to give the Mets dependable relief innings for the better part of a month.

Stokes will be joined in the bullpen by four other September call-ups – Carlos Muniz, Ricardo Rincon, Al Reyes and Bobby Parnell. Only Muniz has worn a Mets uniform previously this season – he has spent so much time bouncing between New York and New Orleans that it’s hard to figure out where he belongs more. He has been misused all year, so it doesn’t seem likely that Manuel will suddenly carve out an important role for Muniz.

Rincon hasn’t pitched regularly since 2005 and hasn’t been an effective major league pitcher since long before that, so it’s obvious that the Mets are hoping to use him only for isolated favorable match-ups. Reyes could end up having more of a role than anyone else; he was pitching reasonably well for Tampa Bay before being released last month and will be anxious to prove that it was a mistake to do so.

As for Parnell, he is proving to be quite the enigma. He has yet to statistically master any level of professional baseball, but nevertheless keeps moving up the organizational ladder. Is it some bizarre form of social promotion, or are scouts seeing something that the statistics aren’t bearing out? Either way, Parnell is unlikely to have any impact on the 2008 pennant race.