1. Pedro Martinez is due back for the Mets on their upcoming road trip. Moises Alou says he is a week away and doesn’t even need a rehab assignment as he recovers from a strained hamstring. This is both the good news and the bad news of the Met season. They could sure use what Martinez and Alou have to offer. But the oldest team in the majors has been hamstrung this season by the injuries and ineptitude of their fading stars. Yes, the Mets have a team-record $137.8 million payroll. But more than 30 percent of that ($42.3 million) is invested in Alou, Martinez, Orlando Hernandez and Carlos Delgado. Alou, Martinez and El Duque have barely played and fill in your own joke here about Delgado. At this point, Hernandez appears a lost cause for 2008, unless he is trying to build up for one last meaningful stretch run by preserving himself now. Delgado’s benching the past two days against lefties sure looks like the beginning of the veteran first baseman falling into a platoon. And Martinez and Alou can merely be look at as question marks. When will they play? How much? The bottom line is that the Mets will never be able to say even after strong performances by either that they have comfort in the immediate future with Martinez and Alou. Health on Monday will mean nothing on Tuesday. With all that has transpired with the Mets and their manager so far this season, they still have a good enough team to win the NL East. But a lot of days now you don’t know if they are being helped by their veterans or impaired.
2. The Mets announced Adam Bostick, a Triple-A starter, would miss the rest of the season after needing knee surgery and Matt Lindstrom threw two-thirds of an inning of shut ball against the Mets. Why do we combine these items? Because Bostick and Jason Vargas were obtained by the Mets for Lindstrom and Henry Owens. Bostick and Vargas have given off the aroma that they are never going to help the Mets. Meanwhile, Lindstrom has emerged into one of the NL’s finer set-up men, a power righty arm similar to what the Mets thought they were getting when they obtained Ambiorix Burgos from the Royals for Brian Bannister. In his season-plus in the majors, Lindstrom has appeared in 94 games (86 2-3rd innings) with a 3.01 ERA. He has allowed just two homers in 326 at-bats, none to lefties in 135 at-bats.
3. How interesting that Joba Chamberlain has received the super-duper bubble-wrap treatment yet it is Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy who represent Generation Trey on the DL.
