From JOEL SHERMAN

In the offseason, the Mets imagined Jonathon Niese was going to afford them rotation depth. There were, in fact, a few Met officials who were championing Niese to make the rotation immediately rather than go with journeymen such as Livan Hernandez and Tim Redding. But Niese is having a miserable year. He gave up six runs in 6 1/3 innings Monday night for Triple-A Buffalo. He fell to 0-5 with an 8.05 ERA. He has just one quality start in nine outings at Triple-A, and in two starts with the Mets this season he had a 5.91 ERA.

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