I've Seen Enough; RIP Get Up Kids

In college I covered the men's soccer team for 4 years. We had one of the best men's soccer programs in the country; I was used to covering a winner.

But naturally, every now and then the team would stumble. Our winning percentage in those years must have been over .800, but when we lost I wouldn't sugarcoat it in the newspaper or in the articles I wrote for our Sports Information service. If the team played like shit, I let the audience know.

That said, I had a policy of reserving my harsher critiques for losses that came at home, losses I had actually seen. You can learn a lot from reading box scores and gathering quotes from the head coach, but you just can't muster the authority to really rip the team when it suffered a loss you didn't see first-hand.

I mention this all because I haven't seen a single start of Jose Lima's. I DVR'ed the first one, a Sunday game against the Braves, but didn't watch because the Mets got blown out and I didn't want to spoil a good weekend.

The second was a Friday night game against the Brewers which I didn't DVR because I wasn't going to be able to watch it on account of my brother's graduation from law school.

And then the third was yesterday, which I experienced through Gamecast but did not see a moment of.

So I haven't seen Lima Time pitch. But I do know this: something is seriously, seriously wrong when you can allow 4 earned runs in 4.2 innings and see your ERA go down.

Something is seriously, seriously wrong when your ERA goes down and it's still at 8.79.

Something is seriously, seriously wrong when a starter fails to go more than 5 innings in any start.

Something is seriously, seriously wrong when a pitcher has 1.81 WHIP and a .305 batting average against.

So I'm breaking with the deal I struck between myself and the team I covered in college: Jose Lima should not, given the current circumstances, get another start with the Mets. I haven't seen him pitch, but I've seen the box scores and I've seen enough.

So send him back to Norfolk. If he goes on some sort of Drysdale streak of scoreless innings, we'll talk. Until then, he has no business being on a major league team with pennant aspirations, he's proven an automatic loss.

The worst news of the day yesterday wasn't that Lima Time lost again, however, it was that Brian Bannister made it through 5 pitches before being sidelined due to pain in his injured hammy.

So you can cross Bannister off the savior list, and now that means the best option is Aaron Heilman. The only other viable options to take over the starting job are Alay Soler and Mike Pelfrey, both of whom could use more seasoning as far as I can tell.

Readers of this site know that I don't consider Heilman a sure thing as a starter. The numbers he's put up in his career are simply not good.

People point to his 1-hitter against the Marlins as proof of his potential. I don't want to discredit his potential, but Glendon Rusch also threw a 1-hitter once upon a time.

Steve Trachsel won consecutive 1-0 ballgames against Pedro Martinez and Orlando Hernandez to become the first American League pitcher in 24 years to accomplish the feat.

I'm not saying none of that is important, nor am I saying that Heilman doesn't have a higher ceiling than either Trachsel or Rusch. Based on his stellar work out of the bullpen, he clearly does.

The point is that pitchers (and all ballplayers for that matter) are judged on a large body of work, not on one 6-for-6 game or one 1-hitter. So far, the large body of work Heilman has scripted as a starter is not impressive.

But he's certainly worth running out there every fifth day. As posters like Nails, Lister and others have said, at some point we owe it to ourselves to get a fix on what we have with Heilman. Where is his optimum potential, as a starter or as a reliever?

Maybe his success as a reliever will give him more confidence if he moves back into the rotation. Maybe he's simply a better pitcher now than he ever was before. No matter what, he couldn't be worse than Lima.

Between that irrefutable fact and the solid numbers he has put up out of the bullpen this year and in Winter Ball and Spring Training over the offseason (although I would caution against reading too much into those latter numbers), Heilman has earned the chance to start.

The good thing about Heilman, in marked contrast to Lima, is that he has use if things don't work out for him as a starter. If he fails, move him back to the bullpen and see what your options are on the trade market or with Soler or Pelfrey.

So is it a given that Lima Time is over? That Lima's reign of terror is over? Don't be so sure. As Matt Cerrone notes in his writeup of Willie's postgame comments (here: http://www.metsblog.com/blog/_archives/2006/5/18/1967815.html), Lima may still get another start.

Why? Don't ask me. Maybe Willie saw something out of Lima on the mound. Me? I just see the box scores, and right now, they're unacceptable.

RIP Get Up Kids

On a matter completely unrelated to baseball, I wanted to take a moment to write a brief requiem for The Get Up Kids, who I learned last night broke up about a year ago.

As should be clear from the fact that I'm only learning of their dissolution now, The Get Up Kids weren't one of my absolute favorite bands. They're just a band I liked a good deal, a band that put out albums that I enjoyed for a month or two and then forgot about until their next record came out.

But they hold a special place in the Glass's heart because they were the first band that I really got into at college. I can't remember who exactly it was that turned me on to them, but I liked what I heard from the get go.

Their earlier work was pretty emo'ed out, and truth be told I don't enjoy the older stuff as much as I used to. Their newer stuff, however, particularly their last release, Guilt Show, is just good, clean American rock music.

If that's not your thing, move on. The Get Up Kids have nothing to offer you. Their music is by no means gritty. But if you enjoy a good rock album give a listen to Guilt Show sometime.

Give a listen to songs like "Martyr Me", "The One You Want", "Sympathy", "In Your Sea", or "Wouldn't Believe It" if you want to sample the Get Up Kids at their best. Thirty seconds are free on iTunes, why not?

I'm saddened to learn that they're no more, but not devastated. Things change, you know? Music grips you and college is fun. But bands break up and college ends. One way or another, life goes on.

So Get Up Kids, here's to you; a fine job done, lo these past 10 years. I'll pour some out for you tonight.

- A.F.O.M.G.