Maine's Rotation Spot in Jeopardy But Still His

John Maine couldn’t have been much worse yesterday as he could only go three innings while surrendering a whopping eight runs. The knee jerk reaction would be to immediately remove him from the rotation, but Mets manager Jerry Manuel won’t do that.

Instead it seems like he is keeping an open mind about the situation, keeping him in there now and leaving open the possibility that he could be removed later.

“I think those things we have to talk about,” Manuel said. “Right now, right after this game, you have to kind of sleep on that and see how you feel tomorrow. Hopefully he feels OK. But you have to have dialogue about it. That’s just the business that we’re in.”

The problem is that right now the Mets have no clear candidate to replace him with, but Maine is coming off of shoulder surgery. If he continues to struggle it might be a sign that he is not quite the same pitcher that the Mets remember from a couple of years ago. To put it simply, there is a chance that Maine will never be capable of being a front of the rotation starter again and the Mets can’t continue to be dragged down while they are trying to wait for him to come around.

That’s why Manuel said what he said, it’s one of those things that they have to talk about. If the situation is about Maine’s shoulder than they might as well take him out now. If it’s only a matter of him being rusty then it is probably in the Mets best interest long-term to let him pitch his way back into a comfort level because having a productive John Maine would be the best thing for this season.

I hope they give Maine at least one more turn through the rotation. Obviously you don’t want to keep running him out there if he’s just going to bomb each start, but at this point it might be worth it to lose one or two games for the long-term success of this team.

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