I keep forgeting about Elduque for some reason. I have no idea why
When is he supposed to be back?

Hopefully Figueroa can make some more quality starts. Better to have a fresh Pedro down the stretch anyway…

I don’t think we will see El Duque much at all this year…but that is merely an opinion. Pelfrey and Figgy will have their chances with Vargas and Armas waiting in Triple A.

met nation is going to have to learn to put both martinez and hernandez on the “way back’ burner. neither one will be back with the team any time soon. disappointing indeed, but that’s the way it is.

these injuries are very frustrating

I love Pedro, always have, but it really is a shame how much of a bust he has been for us–in terms of playing (not in terms of bringing credibility to the franchise, attracting other Latino talent, etc. which I think has been invaluable). It almost seems like the headline “Mets Push Back Pedro’s Return” is a joke at this point…kind of like “El Duque Injures _____; Out for ______.”

The best we can do at this point is let those guys do their usual looooong rehab and get healthy, while hoping for the best from Figgy and Pelf, and get Vargas ready to go in AAA. Best case scenario as I see it, Duque can come back to the Pen and Pedro can come back at some point and take over for whichever of FiggyPelf is struggling. It’s best for the organization longterm to move on from these guys mentally and take whatever we get from them as a bonus.

Of course, it is hard to remember that Figgy is 33–almost as old as Pedro!

this seems to be a non-story. if it was decided on april 1 to keep pedro out 4-6 weeks, that takes us till the middle of may, a date which the story presents as a new time for him to come back. the only difference seems to be that he MIGHT not come back for another two weeks after that. it’s not like we expected him back in exactly 4 weeks. we knew it would be longer. and we’ll be just fine till he comes back. so it seems that really, nothing has changed.

1) El Duque is best forgotten about. He’s 42 and his body is done. If he makes it back, it will be 4 or 5 starts before he’s out again. Duque done.

2) The title is a bit misleading. Article says mid to late May, possibly June. The Metsblog title suggests he’s out THROUGH June, which means July/ASB return. Granted, it could certainly be July or August, but that’s not what’s being reported right now, and I was fooled by the title.

3 There was a season a few years ago where the Mets went into July or August have used just 5 starters. I thought that was amazing, and think so even more now. I’m not yet convinced that Pelfrey is ready for prime time, nor that Figueroa will avoiding joining a list of fill-in starters who left under ugly circumstances (the Lima/Gonzales list has grown quite long under Minaya).

He’ll be back for the home opener at CitiField - watching from the VIP suite.

This is what happens to mid-30s players without the help of HGH. I think we are all going to have to get used to this, again.

Well it is not good news, but agree with the overall sentiment of everyone else that it is going to be while before we see Pedro or El Duque back. I’m guessing around the All Star break.

Keep throwing strikes Big Pelf, and go get’em FIGGY!

This is about what was expected, no? Did anyone really believe it would be six weeks?

This shouldn’t make any difference to this team.
For the past two or three years we have been playing this same game. The good part about it now is we actually have some who can fill the role left by this gap. Tony Armas is not Jose LIma. He is a serviceable number 5 pitcher. Claudio Vargas the same. We have John Pelfrey finally getting his chance under conditions which are favorable to his mindset. We have three quality starters this year. That is better than we have had in past years. Remember, last year, John Maine was an unknown, Ollie Perez had questions about whether he could rebound from the previous year. Last year, all we had that was a known starter was Tom Glavine. Everyone else had questions surrounding them. Plus we had no number five at all and we went through the entire year that way. The year before we had John Maine and Ollie Perez shouldering the playoff load because only Tom Glavine was a known quantity. And that is pretty scary to ask two unknowns to shoulder the playoff load.
Our starters have been a question mark since Willie took over. That is not his doing.
The best part about it is we are seriously working on developing some now Jon Niese etc. We know we need them.

Man! I love Pedro - I really do. I’ve just gotta point out that by the time this guy’s contract is up, he might very well only have been healthy enough to play for 50 to 60 percent of the time. That is frankly Julio Franco-ish. Still, who knows where the Mets would be right now if we didn’t sign Pedro. Maybe a better question is “Where are we?”.

Livan Hernandez. Woulda, coulda…

The bottom line is, whose to say Pedro doesn’t come back and something else happens. In fact, its likely.

The guy pitched 3 innings and bang….hes out. HIm and Duque are old and broken down.

FUTHERMORE….while everyone says pitching wins, the Mets rotation is not the problem right now…its really not.

Its their bats….they are losing games right now because this team is absolutely 100% incapable of getting big hits with RISP.
It never happens, to the point where when the opportunity presents itself, I think most fans are all waiting for the shoe to drop.

And one game showing glimpses of clutch hitting doesn’t do anything. The Mets need to hit with RISP on a weekly basis….it has to be consistant if they want to be considered a force in this league. So far…we have seen absolutely none of it.

Duque’s finished, hopefully he will retire and be able to walk again someday without his trusty boot. He is not worth a second thought at this point, spring training was a joke.

I’m not ready to write off pedro just yet. He pulled a hamstring, it happens to young pitchers as well, they heal. He didn’t reinjure his shoulder/blow out an elbow. He has motivation ($) to pitch well which is very powerful. Even if he comes back in July, there is alot of baseball left and he would be a better option than Figgy/Vargas/Armas. And if they happen to make the post season, they would be more dangerous with Pedro.

I’m happy Pelfrey has to pitch. When you look at them, he has to be a part of the rotation next year as there will likely be no Pedro and possibly no Perez. Looking forward to getting Alou back with all due respect to Pagan. They were a diferent team offensively when he played last year.

At the risk of sounding irrationally optimistic, when Pedro went down, I got to thinking about the whole thing and this is really how I feel:

Maybe this is for the best as far as the Mets are concerned. It is VERY sad and VERY difficult to see good/great players at the end of their careers. It also presents a major problem for the team because the garner so much respect and are shown such deferrence, that it can actually hurt the team.

Many people have said that if Pedro is healthy he can get people out and win games. But I’m not so sure about that anymore. The problem is, if Pedro IS healthy, the Mets will run him out there. And what you will likely get is a mediocre or sub-par 5 inning pitcher at best. That will result in a lot of games with the Mets likely behind on the scoreboard and into their bullpen in the 5th or 6th inning. This will stress a bullpen that already figures to be overused throughout the year.

All the above can be said for El Duque as well. Consider it a blessing that they aren’t both healthy. We would likely experience the above 2 out of every 5 starts.

I think that a healthy Pedro / El Duque combination MIGHT win 12 - 15 games combined. And they AREN’T healthy, and both figure to miss so much time that even that figure is most likely unattainable. If you don’t believe some COMBINATION of Figueroa/Pelfrey/Armas, Jr./Claudio Varga and even a Jonathan Niese can win 15 games then the Mets aren’t really contenders anyway.

So I have resigned myself to the thinking that maybe the best thing for the Mets this year is to see both of them shelved for the bulk of the season, see what we can get from some younger arms and cut ties with both Pedro and El Duque at season’s end. Sad to say, but they are both finished.