As depleted by injury as they are, the Mets still didn’t expect to run into a buzzsaw the way they did Tuesday night when St. Louis’ Joel Pineiro tossed a complete-game, 3-0 shutout at Citi Field. Pineiro came in having lost five consecutive starts and eight of his previous nine. Colleague Jay Greenberg writes that Jerry Manuel might be driven batty by the Mets’ mostly star-less (and very punchless) lineup.

The Fernando Tatis-as-cleanup-hitter experiment already looks like a case of epic fail.

In the notes, John Maine could come off the DL and return to the rotation as soon as Saturday.