Necessity the Mother of Invention

I’m so glad I waited until after last night’s Atlanta game before making any idiotic commentary on the state of the Mets. I had been so disheartened after watching them lose four in a row. A wild pitch, a ridiculous Perez start, a Maine walking marathon, and then still another loss after a promising starter, Jonathon Niese, hurt himself. Things were looking decidedly down for our intrepid heroes.

But then there was Monday night, a new day and a new pitcher, one Mike Pelfrey, who couldn’t take his turn last time out for a shoulder twinge, or something equally ominous-sounding. But the big guy was back for last night’s game and the whole team played better. Especially nice was seeing some slick fielding to accompany some timely hitting by Barajas and some opportunistic base-running from Jose Reyes, once again a leadoff man.

The lineup issues may continue, it’s anybody’s guess, but this lineup had newbie Carter hitting in the cleanup spot and he was pretty damned impressive (1-2, run, rbi). Bay moved to the 3-hole and of course, the worst hitter in the free world, Gary Matthews, batted eighth after Barajas, who continued his torrid and timely hitting by driving in two with a hard double in the left center gap.

But the Mets finally finished on top, and Pelfrey was the biggest reason for it.

But the great game followed an organizational meeting attended by none other than owner Jeff Wilpon and GM Omar Minaya. So things were tense before the game and will probably continue that way for quite some time. It’s quite amusing to me that that brain-trust came up with a lineup that put a rookie in the cleanup spot and removed Angel Pagan from the lineup altogether.

But I love it. First they bring up Ike Davis, who outperformed Mike Jacobs and Fernando Tatis by a long shot. Now they strike gold again with Chris Carter, who supposedly can’t play right field but can hit that ball a good lick. So the brain-trust came up roses.

That a 35-year-old knuckleballer is going to start Wednesday is also pretty interesting. It says to me that they’re getting really imaginative, thinking out of the box, something this organization needs. The same old thinking, fielding an experienced lineup of journeymen retreads, clearly wasn’t working. The last of those might be Matthews, who must have something on somebody to stay on the roster at all.

It’s easy to have mixed feelings right now. You’re happy to not only beat Atlanta in the opener, but to do it the way they did, by playing good baseball all around. At the same time though, you worry about Wednesday and hope Santana can win later today.

You worry about Wednesday because it’ll still be one more starter coming up from the minors, and this time a really veteran knuckler. R.A. Dickey. And truthfully, you worry going forward to Thursday when John Maine takes the mound again after his 13 straight balls in his last putrid start fresh in your mind and nasal cavities.

Then it’ll be Hisanori Takahashi going on Friday against the Yankees. Holy cow! as Phil would have exclaimed. Takahashi replaces Ollie Perez in the rotation, of course, and Perez will take his place as a long reliever. You can’t say it’s not interesting.

And can they be shopping Pagan? Is that why he wasn’t in the lineup? Pagan is a very serviceable commodity in their outfield, and with Beltran coming back and Fernando Martinez still another significant minor league presence, it would make sense to trade for a pitcher, and I’m sure Pagan may even get one.

The Mets are certainly showing some resourcefulness lately. Plato wasn’t a Mets fan but he did call it when he talked about necessity being the mother of invention. The Mets have been really needy lately too.

Even the Yankees are showing some neediness lately though. They got a walkoff dinger from Marcus Thames last night off Boston’s Papelbon, and that came exactly one night after pulling Joba for loading the bases and inserting a none too healthy Mariano Rivera for a 5-out save, a move that really puzzled me at the time, another one of those inexplicable Girardi brain farts.

I’m just happy Girardi’s in the Bronx. The Mets have enough problems. But it’s hard for Girardi to fall on his butt what with Gardner spelling Granderson with flash and even power and a guy like Thames on the bench. We have Tatis and Matthews.

The Mets future depends a lot on whether Maine can show some toughness for once and come back strong in his next start, and, hopefully for a few starts after that. To have to drop one of your starters from the rotation (Perez) is bad enough; to have to drop two would be disastrous, especially if Niese’s hamstring injury, which appears relatively minor as this is written, winds up being serious.

If Maine should continue to falter, and if Niese can’t return, the Mets almost have to make a deal for a pitcher. I can imagine any number of inventive deals down the line, involving just about any serviceable, and thus trade-able, player, either Pagan or possibly even a Carlos Beltran, certainly a more than serviceable commodity, one who has been and probably will be, an enormous distraction.

If things get really crazy, and if the Mets can’t turn it around, I suppose there will be nothing sacrosanct about the manager’s position. I’ve always got a big kick out of Jerry Manuel, but I have to wonder whether some of the problems, especially the weak performances from Wright, Reyes and Bay, aren’t due, at least in part, to Manuel’s own inventiveness, some of which may not have been out of necessity.

The inventiveness could even extend all the way to Omar Minaya, who has to take the hit for Ollie Perez, his most conspicuous error but certainly not the only one.

Last place tends to accentuate all the necessities.