Bullpen Exhaustion, Aaron Heilman and the Mets Classics

Tonight was a bad game, mainly because you can deal with one night when the offense struggles, but two nights starts to make a bad habit of things. At least the Mets are going on the road to three great hitters ballparks. The other issue is bullpen fatigue.

I think Schoeneweis was the right move in that situation. I think he sucks, and I wish he wasn't on the team anymore, but given that he is on the team, and you can't not use guys on the team, it was probably the right move. The problem now becomes fatigue. Two extra inning games have started to tax the bullpen. Willie's kept his starters in longer than I think he would have probably would have any other time, to help save the bullpen for a taxing weekend in Philadelphia. The only other option I see for that inning is Aaron Sele, and I wonder if they're entertaining the idea of him starting one of Friday's games, and holding him back. Aaron Sele however hasn't exactly been an excellent reliever anyway.

I think the Mets need to make some changes. I know it's tough to find bullpen help, and I think Omar is working on it, but it can't happen overnight. Maybe we traded away too many relief prospects in the spring this year. I think it's drawing to a time where you have to do something with Schoeneweis. I doubt he can be optioned down to New Orleans, and from all accounts putting him on the disabled list isn't going to heal his tendon, if it's even the tendon that's making him suck. I want to see some of these relievers that are down in AAA, if we can somehow get them up here on the roster. The Zephyrs have a couple of guys that might be decent. Willie Collazo has a 2.75 ERA, Steve Schmoll has a 3.18 ERA, and even Jon Adkins' ERA is 3.68. Now, I saw some of Adkins in spring training, but I really don't know anything about these guys, but in my mind they can't pitch worse than Schoeneweis, or even Aaron Sele, who I think at least has options.

I'm kind of amused that Aaron Heilman has six wins and leagues the majors in relief wins. He has as many as the rest of the Mets relievers combined. He wants to be a starter, but it's arguable that he'd actually have less wins if he was in the rotation. It's probably just a statistical quirk, but I find it amusing.

The Mets NLDS win over the Dodgers is going to be played on Mets Classics on SNY. I watched one of these games a couple of weeks ago, and it was fun to watch, except for one thing. Especially as a replay, the ESPN and Fox announcers really take some of the juice out of watching these games. Part of the charm is having the guys that we know and have been doing the games all year, continue into the playoffs. I wonder if it's possible to mute these games, and splice in the audio stream from the radio broadcast. I'd much rather listen to Tom, Howie and Gary's radio broadcast while watching these replays.