Just Mets

With the Mets trying to figure out an effective measure to limit the innings of their young starting pitchers, they have often expanded their rotation to include six pitchers.

It hasn’t always worked, and the pitchers have expressed displeasure both privately to Terry Collins and in public via the media.

The Mets expanded their rotation to six pitchers when they promoted Steven Matz from Triple-A Las Vegas. But now that he’s hurt, the Mets have decided to revert back to a five-man rotation.

Of course, there’s a catch.

Terry Collins said on Friday the club will continue with a five-man rotation from this point forward, but use a sixth pitcher to spot start one of the younger pitchers through various turns through the rotation.

This might have made the most sense from the beginning, and something which was posed on this site numerous times over the last couple of months.

Of course, it would have featured Jon Niese or Dillon Gee as the spot starter in those proposed scenarios, but they could still use Gee or Logan Verrett (who is also at Las Vegas working as a starter), to spot start one of the younger guys each time through the rotation, or once during the longer stretches of consecutive games.

They can use off-days to mitigate these innings limits and not use the spot starter during those turns through the rotation.

What they do when (or if) Steven Matz returns is anyone’s guess, but that’s a problem they’ll deal with presumably when they know more about his condition, which should come in about two weeks.

Whatever they decide to do, the club is 89 games into the season. They need to devise a plan, and stick to it.

They cannot go through the second half waffling and messing with the component of the club which is going to be the key to their success if they make it to the playoffs.