Growing Pains

Paul Wilson, Jason Isringhausen, and Bill Pulsipher received as much hype as any recent young pitchers. Ten years later, Izzy is the only one who sort of lived up to the hype, except he wound up in the bullpen. Patience everyone. Mike Pelfrey is struggling, he is not ready to be a major league pitcher. Pelfrey gets frazzled early in games, does not throw any of his pitches consistently, makes too many mistakes that get hit, and struggles with the strike zone at time. A bad month and half does not mean he is less of a prospect, just give him more time. The Mets made a good move today sending him down to AAA after another rough outing. The move allows Pelfrey to work out his problems in a less stressful environment, and get regular work every five days, not to mention that Jorge Sosa is pitching better and El Duque is about to come back.

Baseball is great because you never know what you will say. Case in point, the Mets turned a double play on a pop out yesterday, but gave up two runs to a heads-up Brewers team. The Amazins were sloppy in the field and the pitching added to the problems. Smith and Feliciano both gave up their first runs of the season, not just one run, but the Brewers tagged Smith for a grand slam. Over 162 games, there are days like this, at least the Mets got it all out of their system at once. The only worrisome part was Moises Alou hobbling off the field with an injury.

Check out Mike Lupica in the Daily News, he sums up New York baseball for you, the Yanks get the headlines while the Mets just fly under the radar and keep winning.

Across town, or across the country this weekend, Matt DeSalvo continued to pitch like Matt DeSaviour for the Yanks. The offense snapped out of the doldrums, the bullpen held up, and DeSalvo notched career win #1. For one day all was right with the Yankees, the hitters hit, the pitchers pitched, and they sucked the life out of their opponent like the old days. One nice move by Torre, he announced DeSalvo will start again Thursday before he took the mound last night. Smart move by Joe, great way to build confidence for the young guy. Old Joe still has it.