Seems as if the five ace dream wasn’t dead after all. With the Mets needing a fifth starter, and Jason Vargas still recovering from a broken bone in his glove hand, the Mets needed to make a choice. Seth Lugo? Robert Gsellman?
The Fifth Beatle?
Zack Wheeler’s stint at Triple-A Las Vegas was brief. The Mets will call up Wheeler to make a spot start Wednesday, marking the first time that Noah Syndergaard, Jacob deGrom, Steven Matz, Matt Harvey and Wheeler will take consecutive turns in the rotation. (…)
They could have given that assignment to (Seth) Lugo. But Callaway has grown so enamored with using Lugo and Robert Gsellman as wipeout relievers late in games that he did not want to remove either from his current role. Those two entered Sunday’s play unscored upon in seven innings, with 13 strikeouts and no walks.
Lugo and Gsellman? Victims of their own success. They could have gotten the swing start. And Lugo, at the very least, earned it. But they’re also part of the reason why the Mets have been successful for the first eight games of the season, and they’ve helped Mickey Callaway achieve genius status by being able to go multiple innings and enabling Callaway to use the rest of his relievers in the manner he wants without blowing them out. Lugo’s three innings in Sunday night’s victory proves how valuable he is in that bullpen right now.
Hence, Wheeler gets the start, and I guess he’ll remain in the rotation until Vargas gets healthy, when the Mets will have another interesting decision to make, depending on how Wheeler does in his limited time. But the most important thing to come of this is that the “Five Aces” will finally get a turn through the rotation together. So we should probably enjoy our five aces … which will be more like two aces and three fives, as in five innings a piece. Full houses are pretty good too.
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