Steve Trachsel For... Game 3 Starter?

Dear Diary,

So there’s this boy on the team I like. His name’s Steve. He’s always kind of been there, and for the longest time I thought he was gross. He takes 4EVR!! to throw the ball, and I hate the way he saunters around like he owns the place.

Ugh! I really, really don’t want to like him, and I know I shouldn’t, and I still don’t really… but, kinda, maybe sorta I do?

Ugh!

Confused,
A.F.O.M.G.

* * * * *

Conventional wisdom: Nobody wants to see Steve Trachsel start Game 3 of a playoff series.

This was the thought going through my mind yesterday as I watched Trachsel – or “Trash” as he was lovingly called by Dave Williams during an interview on SNY with Y2K legend Chris Cotter – work his way through another masterful 6 innings of 3-run ball.

I shouldn’t be so hard on Trash, 6 innings of 3-run ball actually qualifies as one of his better showings. His ERA dropped from 5.00 to 4.98, he wiggled out of jams with an almost unheard of 6 strikeouts, and somehow he managed to notch his 12th victory in 13 starts.

Over the course of his improbable 13-start romp through the National League, Trachsel has been the beneficiary of incomparably high run support.

Including last night’s 10-run outburst against the Colorado Rockies, the Mets have averaged 8.92 runs per game in Trachsel’s starts since his streak began on June 9.

Rejoinder to the conventional wisdom: Perhaps no Mets fan wants to see Steve Trachsel start a playoff game, but what if the one group of people who seem to enjoy having Trash out on the mound are the Mets themselves?

Baseball’s a funny game. For all the statistical analysis out there, I’m convinced that some things just can’t be explained.

I don’t know, for instance, how it’s possible that the Marlins are 1 game out of the Wild Card lead with 25 22-year-olds on their roster, but I’m sure that somewhere a Disney executive is hoping, praying that the Fish will win first a playoff spot, and then later the World Series.

(Starring Gheorghe Muresan as a taller, equally ugly Joe Girardi and featuring Michael Caine playing against-type as meddling owner Jeffrey Loria, the film would chronicle the trials and tribulations of the magical 2006 season in South Florida.

The film’s final third would begin with Girardi’s near firing after telling Loria to shut up. A broken Muresan would collapse in his manager’s chair after explaining to a stunned silent Marlins clubhouse that his time with the team may be up, but then Mike Jacobs, played in a career-making turn by Paul Walker, would heroically cross the room, put his hand on Muresan’s shoulder and declare resolutely “We believe in you, Coach.”

Overcome with emotion, Muresan mouths the words “Thank you” to his young first baseman, the room erupts with cheers, and the Marlins go on to win 9 straight, then the Wild Card, then the National League Championship Series over the sneering, overconfident Mets, and lastly the World Series over the still more sneering, still more overconfident Yankees.)

For that matter, I can’t explain how Fran Healy kept his job as a Mets broadcaster for 22 years.

Anyway, file Trachsel’s streak under the impossible to explain category. The question I have is whether the team’s remarkable production with Trachsel on the mound ever becomes statistically significant.

Every ounce of logic out there tells me that it’s with some combination of coincidence and luck that the Mets score nearly 9 runs a game Trachsel's starts, but we baseball fans are nothing if not superstitious, am I wrong?

It all goes back to “Bull Durham”: you never fuck with a winning streak.

If the Mets continue to score 9 runs a game for Trachsel throughout the month of September, and if they continue to win virtually all of Trachsel’s starts, does there come a point when we decide, hey, the Mets just play better when Trash is out on the hill, why fight it?

I know the idea rebels against everything most of us have come to appreciate about baseball over the past half decade or so. K’s per 9. WHIP. OBA. The fact is that Trachsel’s teammates have rendered it all meaningless over the past 2.5 months.

My feelings on this are complicated. There’s hardly any metric (beyond his good fortune) that argues in favor of Trachsel starting a playoff game for the Mets. I know that.

But here we are on August 30. Trachsel is on pace for a 17-6 season, which may be good enough to lead the National League in wins. The Mets offense erupts every time he takes the mound.

It probably doesn’t hurt that the opposing pitchers in most of these games are the Josh Towerses, the Miguel Batistas, the Elizardo Ramirezes, but in fairness there have also been Randy Johnson and Greg Maddux (who, by the way, probably project to be Game 3 starters on the Yankees and the Los Angeles Dodgers of Los Angeles).

At the end of the day, there is no denying the fact that the Mets are most productive when Trachsel is on the hill. I can appreciate that. So when I consider Trash as our Game 3 starter, I have to admit that, kinda, maybe sorta, my mind says no but my heart says yes?

- A.F.O.M.G.