ESPN New York’s Adam Rubin is reporting that the Mets will send reliever Jenrry Mejia down to the minors to stretch him out into a starter again. Mejia had not thrown a pitch in Triple-A before making the roster out of Spring Training. In AA, he went 0-5 with a 4.47 ERA.
For those of us, both fans and analysts alike, who were calling for Mejia to be a starter since Spring Training, it’s about time. Now that Oliver Perez has been sent to the bullpen, John Maine is wildly inconsistent, and Jon Niese has a hamstring injury, it’s more important for the Mets to add a starter.
It’ll still take probably a month to get Mejia ready. In the meantime, the Mets have called up R.A. Dickey and are tapping Hisanori Takahashi out of the bullpen to fill the gaps until Niese is well enough to pitch again. If Niese’s condition doesn’t improve and Dickey doesn’t perform well, we might see someone like Raul Valdes taking a crack at starting.
2 Comments
Developing Mejia as a starter is the right move. However, if the Mets are doing this with an eye toward bringing Mejia back as a starter later this season, they are missing the point. It is not a matter of “stretching him out” like they would be doing with, say, Takahashi. He needs to learn a lot of things about starting, getting greater command over the curveball and changeup, etc. Until Mejia turned heads with his cutter in spring training, no one thought (esp. based on his fall league performance) that he was just a few minor-league starts away from joining the rotation. The Mets should adopt the attitude that there is no rush with Mejia.
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