SAN DIEGO — The Mets plan to take a long look at their
future tonight. In particular, the future of hard-throwing right hander Bobby Parnell as a member of their starting rotation.
The Mets’ long-discussed notion of Parnell as a starter — his role throughout the minors until becoming a reliever in the majors this year — will come to fruition when he takes the mound against the last-place Padres at Petco Park.
“It’s been a dream of mine to start in the majors, so this is a big moment for me,” the soft-spoken Parnell said in his North Carolina drawl after getting word from manager Jerry Manuel of the switch.
Parnell is moving into the rotation for the rest of the season in large part due to injuries, specifically the torn hamstring tendon that Jonathon Niese suffered earlier this week at Citi Field.
But Niese’s injury merely pushed up a move the Mets have been talking about since last year, when they considered having Parnell pitch as a starter in winter ball to smooth the transition.
Though management felt this season was too soon to put the 24-year-old Parnell in the rotation, his fastball — consistently in the high 90s and sometimes reaching 101 mph — won him a spot in the bullpen coming out of spring training.
Parnell has had a predictably up-and-down season, compiling a 2-3 record and 3.74 ERA in 54 innings, but enters his first big league start on a bit of a roll, having allowed just two earned runs in his previous 16 1/3 innings.
With the Mets beginning play last night at 51-57 and all but dead in the wild-card race, Manuel said the club felt like it didn’t have much to lose by making the 2005 ninth-round pick a starter.
“We had toyed with that idea over the winter, having him go to winter ball and see how he would handle it,” Manuel said. “But with where we are now, this is a better time than any.”
The knock on Parnell so far is his overwhelming tendency to rely on his fastball and rarely show his secondary pitches, particularly a slider that scouts said was above average in the minors.
Manuel defended Parnell against that criticism, saying the pitcher’s overreliance on his fastball was the result of being called on in often-crucial, late inning situations.
“When we put a guy in the position of Parnell, he comes into a game, the game is the balance,” Manuel said. “Now you’re telling him, ‘Use your best, don’t get beat on your secondary pitches.’ Therefore the other ones never really develop. So, now, this gives him an opportunity to see if he can [make] those pitches can evolve and develop into the quality that he has with his fastball.”
Nor does Manuel feel he is hurting Parnell by making the switch from reliever to starter in the middle of a season. Such midseason transitions used to happen all the time in the majors, according to Manuel, with Mark Buehrle and Jon Garland serving as two examples that immediately came to the manager’s mind.
“For me, that’s how I like to see it done,” Manuel said. “Obviously, you run into different thoughts, different philosophies. For me, it gives a guy an opportunity to experience the major leagues. You are giving him something very short to focus on and get adapted to the major leagues. Now all you’re doing is taking a good arm and trying to say, let me extend this for four, five, six, maybe nine innings.”
The Mets will find out beginning tonight if Parnell is up to the task.
bhubbuch@nypost.com
