It was nice after the “Super Tuesday” doubleheader to forget a lot of our problems and just allow ourselves to dream. And to bathe in the virtual beer that Zack Wheeler felt for real because let’s face it … when one gets doused with cheap beer, we all get doused in cheap beer.
But we feel the bad times too. Oh boy, do we feel the bad times. For example, when Joe Simpson wishes for Matt Harvey’s oblique to be strained, Joe Simpson wishes for all of our obliques to be strained. When Jon Rauch waterlogs Matt Harvey’s phone with ice water while he’s asleep, all of our phones suddenly start dripping. When Bernie Madoff takes Fred Wilpon’s money, he takes all of our money. (And that’s not literary license. Bernie Madoff actually did take all of our money.)
So when one of our own goes to 0-9, we all feel like we have nine L’s hung on us. And the feeling is worse coming off what happened on Tuesday. But it was inevitable. The good news is that Harvey Day and Wheeler Day will no longer be scheduled to happen on the same day. Because as good as Tuesday was, it’s kind of like having your birthday on Christmas. Everything happens at once, but then it’s over. And you have to wait a whole damn year to have it again, not to mention that some people that were born on Christmas get gipped out of half the gifts that they would get on two separate days. For Mets fans, the four days between Harvey Days feel like a year the way the Mets go. So to have a Harvey Day and a Wheeler Day means that we’ll have less Marcum Days in between. It’s like going to your calendar and crossing out all of the Mondays.
With one of these starting pitchers needing to find a new role (or address) in the next week or so, it sure as hell doesn’t look good for Marcum to stay. I hear Bob Ojeda and others talking about who would be best suited for the bullpen. I’m not sure that in this particular case it’s prudent to think that way. Leaving Marcum in the rotation might be considered thinking too much considering his W-L and ERA, which means that it’ll probably happen to save somebody’s feelings with a manager who puts up a front of being a little too cerebral in these cases. But then again, Marcum might be the only one with any trade value, which would be a cleaner way to get down to five.
In reality, it doesn’t really matter who leaves the rotation. For the Mets, at this very moment, going from a six man to a five man rotation merely means less calendar days and less beatings between Harvey and Wheeler starts.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
