But on the bright side, Santana looks good, Pedro looks healthy and maybe Maine makes that next leap. Let’s hope OP does the same or at least stays to 07 levels and does not regress.

If so, then Mets probably only need about 5-10 wins from the 5th starter to get to that magic # for playoff teams of 65-70 wins from the starting rotation and 90 or so for the season.

And let’s hope Armas or Fig are better than Lawrence or Lima.

Speaking of Pelfrey, I know many pitchers have struggled early on, like Glavine and Maddux. Problem with Pelfrey is his mental make-up. He seems to crap his pants whenever there are any expectations from him. He looked like ML pitcher once in his career – last year in Atlanta when nobody counted on him.

He’ll be a good middle-of-the-rotation guy if he ever gets the time to get his confidence and secondary stuff in order.

Dismiss a guy like Pelfrey too early and pretty soon they’re trading him for two bench pieces and he’s blossoming somewhere else.

Scoopcoop we’re kinda of in agreement. What do you do with ElDuque. You can’r send him down and you can’t disable a guy who is pitching, And we’d both be shocked if the Mets ate the contract. Pelfrey: How about a shrink for him in the minors. The second I read the quote a couple weeks ago that this was the Pelfrey of last year, I knew he wasn’t mentally ready for the big time. Maybe Cohen’s (not that Cohen) is right but if so this franchise is in deep trouble with zero depth to spell any disablement to anybody.
You know when you guy’s were fighting over the greatly lamented Heath Bell I was wondering why Minaya traded a guy who threw real fast and had no breaking ball for nothing and went out and got a guy who threw real hard and had no breaking ball(Burgos) for a serviceable 5th starter (Bannister).

Thing I wanted to emphasize is this – saying that El Duque’s finished and calling our #5 spot situation critical is premature. He is a finesse pitcher who just made his first spring start, that’s usually ugly. And he’s a baseball legend who would be a HOF member if he jumped on the boat when he was 22. He was also excellent last year altough he seemed half-dead (OK, he’s probably 60% dead now with the bunion thing). I’ll give him benefit of the doubt at the moment.

But knowing Mets, don’t be surprised that this yrs Lima (Figueroa) gets the spot.

Eldud-even if Mets wanted to put him in pen, he takes too long to warm up those old bones. He can’t be effective simply b/c they can’t depend upon him to be ready when they call the BP. and if he is DFA’d Mets still have to pick up the tab on him (assuming someone wants to take him).

Pelfrey-I can’t figure him out. One inn his ball seems to have lots of sink. Next inn it is straight as can be. And his comments just yesterday that he had no chance to be 5th starter are so negative. He really needs to go down and get his confidence back. He really spit the bit today.

CHOO CHOO
Perez ahead of Maine is to make it Lefty-righty-lefty-righty. No other reason.

Pelfrey on the other hand is a career AAA player/emergency starter. 5 years from now people will still talk about him “needing time in AAA to work on his stuff”.

The Cardinals have had the Mets number all spring, so maybe this was in part a continuation of their struggles against them. I’d like to see Pelfrey and El Duque pitch at least one more time head to head before they give up on them.

I know
i’d send Pelfrey out regardless and if I couldn’t find a guy off of the DFA pile this week, I’d start Sosa until I found an alternative. I’d put El Duque in the long man role and see what happens. If he doesn’t want to go bad enough he can retire and save me the money or he can go there until he finds out if he can pitch with his bad foot. Or he can refuse and let me suspend him…. or he can say he’s hurt and let me disable him.

Randolph also noted the fifth starter may not be active until Game 5, which suggests it will be Mike Pelfrey over El Duque, in spite of Pelfrey’s horrid line: 4.1 innings, 13 hits, eight runs.

That opens an extra bench spot for the first four games, too.

Update: A Mets official suggested activating the fifth starter Game 5 doesn’t seem realistic, suggesting five starting pitchers and a five-man bench from Day 1.

so which is it 5 guys from the start or not for 2 weeks?

This really shows that they don’t know what to do w/either of those guys.