Where Have You Been All My Life?

I now understand why Terry Collins wanted Josh Stinson up so badly.

Stinson made his major league debut tonight against the Nationals, coming within an out of closing out a 7-3 win (Danny Herrera, the one you know as “player to be named later“, closed it out for Stinson … and no, it doesn’t count as a game finished for Frankie since that was the deal he came in.) But Stinson pitched an inning and two thirds of solid baseball. Not so much because of the statistics, but that he was throwing hard, free, and easy. Here’s a guy making his major league debut with every reason to be nervous, and he threw 15 strikes out of 20 throws. And he was popping the glove at 93 while hitting the corners.

For those of us used to experiencing Mets’ bullpen experiences the same way we embrace a root canal, watching Stinson pitch gave me the sensation of lying on a fluffy cloud with chocolate bars floating by for the taking. Stinson is a serious revelation … not the revelation that he’s going to set the world on fire and become the greatest closer since sliced bread, but the revelation of what you already knew: Enough of bullpen by patchwork, bullpen by overpriced free agent (and you can’t spell overpriced without “Carrasco”), bullpen by finger crossing and prayers. It’s time for the Mets to develop bullpen arms that’ll make people swing and miss without breaking a sweat. Think about it this way: Even when Ryota Igarashi, who actually pitched well on Friday, was going good for about a month in 2010, he looked like every ounce of energy he had was going into every pitch. And that’s fine, but isn’t it nice to see a guy from your own farm system come up and throw hard while looking like he just rolled out of bed? Isn’t it nice to see a guy approach mid-90’s without having to set his hair on fire to do it?

Now, wouldn’t it be nice to have a whole stable of arms in the pen that are home-grown that throw strikes with minimal effort? That’s what I dream about now that the Einhorn dream is dead. Sure, it’s a long drop from dreaming of a stable ownership to dreaming of a bullpen that doesn’t set things on fire, but I’m very comfortable on my little cloud. It’s a similar cloud to the one David Wright, Lucas Duda, and Nick Evans are sharing … the one that they’re on after hitting Friday night home runs. You know, those things where you hit a baseball over a fence that’s of reasonable height and you leisurely touch all four bases? It’s easy to forget what a home run is playing at a home field that feels like one big weighted doughnut.

Don’t wake us from our dreams. They’re all we have.