Some Post-Debacle Thoughts

Hey troops. How we feeling today? Not good? Got a bad taste in your mouth? Yeah, me too.

I mean, at least last night's game was competitive. Those of you who read my post yesterday know that what bothered me more than anything else about the first two games of the series was the Mets' apathy.

It's one thing to go down swinging, it's another to go down looking. In games 1 and 2, the Mets went down looking.

Yesterday was different, and good thing too, especially for A Friend of Mrs. Glass', who would have had a most despondent companion had the Mets looked anything like they did on Tuesday or Wednesday. The Mets showed some fight, they didn't piss the game away, and all in all it was the kind of game that should have been on display throughout the series.

That said, there's not a lot of good you can take away from last night. As far as I can tell, the question facing the Mets right now is how much to draw from this series.

1. Lastings Milledge.

I don't care how cocky the kid is, this series will stick with Milledge longer than it will with any Met not named Pedro Martinez. He must know how horrible he looked. He must know that the series might have turned out entirely different had he not misplayed those two routine putouts.

So there's understandably a lot of frustration directed at Milledge right now. One person who's particularly upset with Milledge is our loyal reader Nails. Here's what he had to say last night:

"Milledge sucks... There is no reason not to trade Milledge at this point for a stud pitcher if we can get one. Somebody who will be with us for a few years. But we need more than what we got. And we don't need Lastings Magellan."

First off, it's not fair to say that Milledge sucks. He's a 21-year-old kid. Let's do a comparison:

Player A: 24 games, .213 avg., .215 OBP, .337 SLG, .552 OPS, 1 HR, 19 RBI

Player B: 24 games, .233 avb., .287 OBP, .419 SLG, .706 OPS, 3 HR, 12 RBI

Player B's statistics probably look pretty familiar to you. They belong to Lastings Milledge. As for Player A, that's my pal Mr. Glass' line after playing 24 games in the big leagues as a 20-year-old kid in that enchanted summer of 2003.

All I'm trying to illustrate here is that few young players break into the league and immediately look good. Almost all look like a shell of their future selves, David Wright included.

A crucial difference between Reyes and Wright on one side and Milledge on the other is that Reyes and Wright had the benefit of breaking in with Mets teams that were so far out of contention that their growing pains weren't back page stories (as Milledge's gaffes might have been). We could overlook them for the good of the team.

With Milledge though it's different. The team isn't in a pennant race, but it's in a race for credibility, and our credibility took a big hit with our performance in Boston.

To run Milledge out of town for it though is foolhardy. He's not the answer this year, that much seems clear, but a year or two from now he may be. And that's the standard that he needs to be held up against when we consider potential trades.

I wouldn't trade him for Barry Zito unless we could pull off a trade-and-sign, but that's not gonna happen. I would definitely trade him for Dontrelle Willis, but it would probably take Mike Pelfrey to make that deal happen, and that price is too steep for my tastes.

I say patience. Let Lastings return to Norfolk and hone his game. Cliff Floyd is scheduled to return tonight, but he's not scheduled to return next year. Rather than panic and trade Lastings to the highest bidder based on his first 24 games, let's do what we would hope our organization would do and not trade our top prospect at the first sign of failure.

2. The Pedro situation.

I'm not a doctor, but I know what I've read, and what I've read is that Pedro is suffering from various ailments at the moment, a hip injury suffered in Florida being most prominent.

Would that our rotation woes began and ended with Pedro! Pedro's not the half of it. Alay Soler's inconsistency. Shitty Tracshel's general shittiness. El Duque's complete eh-ness.

So we can't pretend that Pedro is the only rotation issue we've got, but I think he may be the key to getting it figured out.

If Pedro really is hurt, we need to get him healthy. Put him on the 15-day DL. We're 3-7 in his last 10 starts; a lot of that isn't his fault, but the fact is that we won't necessarily miss his production during the 3 starts he would miss.

In the meantime, give Pelfrey a shot. This is the perfect time. We've got one month until the trade deadline. See how Pelfrey does over the next 3 starts. If he impresses, that gives you options. Trade Tracshel? Send Soler back to the minors? I'm not sure what the right move would be.

What I do feel sure of is that a trip to the DL for Pedro has a lot of upside. The Mets are 11 games up. We're playing with house money at the moment, even if we did just get swept. If losing Pedro for 3 starts now would pay dividends in the other 12 he should make this year, then this is the time to do it.

And if Pelfrey comes along and impresses, all the better.

Anyway, that's all I got. Tough series against Boston, but now it's on to face the Yanks. Let's put it behind us and move on.

Last thing: Fenway really is gorgeous. God damn.

- A.F.O.M.G.