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Message: [QUOTE="sutomcat, post: 5108695, member: 27"] Another game essentially given away because of poor depth with the relief pitchers. Losing Raley, Smith and Reid-Foley hurt a lot. No knows talks about the loss of Nate Lavander, a gifted young lefty reliever who was expected to be a big addition to the bullpen but blew out his elbow near the start of the season starting games in Syracuse (what the hell was that all about?). Add in losing Diaz for 10 games and a starting staff that walks a lot of people and gets so deep in pitch counts most struggle to finish 5 innings and a bad situation becomes a nightmare. What can be done? They can trade a starting pitcher for a relief pitcher. Senga looks like he might actually come back and pitch after the all star game. That would make trading another starter easier. But the Mets have Scott and Butto down in Syracuse, pitching really well in a hitter dominated International League. They are ready to contribute now. Megill was just sent down to get an extra reliever on the roster but he will be back shortly. Maybe the worst part of Diaz getting suspended is that the Mets cannot replace him on the roster so they have to put a man short for 10 games in a row. One consideration regarding Scott is that the most innings he has pitched in the pros is 87 innings last season. He is at 70 or so now. I think they have rules to limit how many more innings you can pitch for young pitchers than you have in the past to try and limit arm injuries. Might be you can go up 20% more than your previous high. Anyway, I suspect Scott will be capped somewhere around 90 innings. Maybe 100. He might only have 30 more innings left. I haven't seen anyone write about it but it seems like all his recent starts with the Syracuse Mets end with 4 innings pitched. I think this is being done to try and keep him in a regular rotation as long into the season as possible. In theory, the Mets could call up some relief pitchers from Syracuse but I don't think any are ready for MLB ball right now. We need better arms. The other option is to convert a starting pitcher or two to a reliever. I believe Scott was a relief pitcher at Florida. It might make sense to switch him back to relief pitching for the rest of the season so the 20 or 30 innings he has left could be stretched into 20 or 30 appearances. I think he might contribute more to the team this season doing that than being a 4 inning starter for 6 starts or so. Butto or Megill could also be converted into relief pitchers. Megill seems like he might be best suited for it given he can really throw hard and it seems like he really struggles to put together 6 or 7 solid innings. Somewhere along the line, he seems to have a meltdown and 4 runs are on the board before he settles back in. I don't care which way they go but I think I have seen enough of these waiver wave retreads coming up and getting bombed. Enough is enough. 5 or 10 games have been given away because of these clowns pitching in close games. No mas. Either trade for relievers or convert some of the extra starters to relief. And do it today. [/QUOTE]

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