Panic! in the Blogosphere*

Pedro Martinez (RIP) is lost. But what about the postseason?

That's the question on the minds of Mets fans the morning after we learned that our beloved ace would miss the entirety of the postseason.

Naturally there are plenty of people counting the Mets out. They say the Mets needed their ace pitcher to guide them through October. They say that without Pedro the Mets just don't have the horses to win.

Fuck that.

Let's try this. Remember this guy?

For my money, he's the only person the Mets can't win with. If Jose Lima were in our rotation going into October, I'd say, OK, the Mets are fine and fucked right now.

But that's not who we're going with. We're going with El Duque, Tom Glavine, John Maine, and yes, Steve Trachsel.

Of those four, I'll admit that I genuinely have no confidence in Trachsel. It takes a best of all worlds scenario for him to have a good outing; this we know.

Doesn't mean it can't happen; he certainly looked great in a big spot against the Marlins a week and change ago. But none of us will go into his starts expecting to win.

But you know what? That's OK because I'm going to go into the games started by El Duque, Glavine and Maine thinking we will win.

In 116.2 innings as a Met, El Duque has allowed 53 earned runs. Not excellent by any means. But there's more to El Duque than the sabernazis would let you believe.

I'm not going to drudge up his playoff resume, impressive as it is, it's actually painful for me to recall given his previous employer.

I'm more concerned with the pitcher he's been for the Mets, and anybody who's followed this team knows he's been our best pitcher since virtually the day we got him. He's performed in the big games he's started, all but one of which came against playoff teams, but that one counts because it was against the team that had dumped him a couple weeks prior.

So El Duque, him I'm not worried about.

As for Glavine, look, he hasn't been the same pitcher in the second half that he was in the first half. Unlike Trachsel, however, you don't think it would take a miracle for him to have a good outing, nor do you go into the game worried that things will get completely out of hand.

With Glavine you're either going to have a really good effort or a middling one. Aside from that start in Atlanta and that first start back after the blood clots in Houston, Glavine's been pretty automatic where quality starts go.

Bottom line: it's not always pretty with Glavine, but he consistently keeps the Mets in games, and sometimes he dominates. I'll take my chances.

That leaves John Maine. If we'd gone back a week or two ago, we all would have said we wanted him pitching Game 4 ahead of Trachsel, and he's done nothing to give us a reason not to want him for Game 3/4 now.

He's green, yes, but he's also got a 3.64 ERA, a 1.14 WHIP and a 7.29 K/9. On merit he deserved to start all along, the fact that he is now being forced into a starter's role shouldn't discourage us.

But here's the point. We all would have loved to have seen Pedro out there. When he's healthy, when he's himself, he's the best thing we've got going.

Fact is though, Pedro hasn't been healthy or himself for months now. Didn't matter. The Mets kept winning.

In a playoff series his intensity and swagger would have been incredibly valuable. We're not better without him, but we're not markedly worse as the naysayers are already naysaying we are.

Truth is, without him we're really the team we've been over the last 4 months.

So pour some out for Pedro tonight, but don't shed any tears for the Mets. They've persevered without their ace for 4 months now.

The way I see it, what's another 4 weeks?

- A.F.O.M.G.

* Please accept my sincerest apologies for anyone who was offended by this title, and just so the record's clear on this one, know that I am not a fan of Panic! at the Disco. Truth is, I've never heard any of their songs, but I know that I'm supposed to dislike them on principle, so I do.