Oh Pedro

(Double the content for you today. The first piece, by Sippy Momo, is about Pedro's three-month swoon. The second, by Cheddar Ben, is some good old-fashioned Yankee bashing about Derek Jeter's legitimacy as an MVP candidate. Enjoy.)

A funny thing happened this year. In a season where everything has been new, where Wright and Reyes have emerged as superstars and Beltran as the favorite for MVP, a season in which the bullpen has been spectacular and the rest of the rotation has pitched as expected, there is really one player that hasn’t played up to expectations.

That player is Pedro Martinez.

Pedro was everything we wanted and more in the month of April, when he went 5-0 on the strength of a 2.94 era. Along with Carlos Delgado, Pedro was the major reason that the Mets blasted out of the chute in 2006 and have since never looked back

As good as he was in April, May might have been Pedro's best month, even if you'd never know it by looking at his won-loss record. Pedro managed a 2.14 ERA, a return to his glory days of the late 90’s.

He was the best pitcher in the National League and 2nd in all of baseball to another oldie, Jose Contreras, who was unhittable for the first two months of the season, but like Pedro has since slowed down.

After May the numbers get very ugly. This was magnified at its worst in last night's 1 inning dud. Take a look at his monthly breakdown.

June 2-3 6.23
July 1-0 6.00
August1-1 5.65

For those too busy in their finance and law careers to do the math, we are looking at 4-4 with an ERA around 6.

Pedro has looked old and broken down. With every start there is a different minor injury that is nagging some part of Pedro’s diminutive body.

For years he was considered a freak of a nature. A man no more than 5’10, 165 lbs with a long arm rotation and a violent leg kick serving up 98 mph fastballs with perfect control. He was a power pitcher who was smaller than all the control pitchers.

The torque that he generated in his pitching arm generated an arm movement that is humanly impossible for 99.9% of the world.

It is for this reason that Pedro could once throw 99. It is for similar reasons that Lance Armstrong can outride every person in the world and LeBron James can jump 42 inches on a 240lb frame. He was simply a freak.

Over the last couple of years Pedro’s career has shifted. He has lost the freak that symbolized his early career and has been forced to evolve. Pedro has become a magician.

On top of his stuff being better, Pedro has always been smarter than hitters. At his best in 2006, Pedro could spot his 88-90mph heater and then use his secondary pitches to outsmart his opponents.

At times this season, Pedro was as good as he has ever been. He made batters look like fools to the point where you could just laugh. The swings we would see at his offspeed stuff would be embarrassing.

Not nearly as embarrassing as the swings we would see when Pedro was off. And this is not the good embarrassing.

The older Pedro’s success is much more dependant on his health. Pedro can no longer reach back and fire. In his old days he could reach back and fire 98 mph cheese whenever he needed to. That 98 is now 89 and that whiff is now a mash.

So we need Pedro perfect. We need every last screw in his body to feel great. In order for him to be able to use his brilliant pitching mind, we need him to rest his deteriorating pitcher’s body.

Which is why we shut this guy down.

His next important start will be somewhere around October 4th, Game 1 of the NLDS. Knock on wood, but we really don’t need this guy anytime between now and then.

For this reason, we do whatever it takes to get him back in October. We need 4-6 more starts out of this guy this year. Those starts may make every penny of his $54 mil look like a smart investment.

The Mets don’t have much of a shot in the playoffs without a dominant Pedro. Which is why we need to get this guy back when it counts.

So for now, we wait. We monitor his therapy, not his starts.

And then we try and find a Mets fan out there that could have predicted not only a 95 win season, but a 95 win season in which Pedro wins 9 games.

Hope and Pray.

VCD,

SM