Mejia Watch

Jenrry Mejia has pitched three games at the AAA level in his career. In the first, he pitched eight innings, taking a no-hitter pretty deep into the game before allowing a solo home run, the only run he allowed. The next two came this season; in the first he threw 6 innings, in the second 6.2, and he allowed a total of 0 runs on 6 hits. This brings his minor-leagues innings-pitched total to 265, with an ERA of 2.51. After the 1983 season, the Mets' top pitching prospect had thrown 269.2 career minor-league innings with a career ERA of 2.57. And he hadn't pitched above the level of A-ball. Those numbers look eerily similar to Mejia's numbers as of this instant, don't they? That pitching prospect was, of course, Dwight Gooden, who did some pretty good things in his first few years with the Mets. My point is, of course, that I think a point is fast approaching in this season after which Jenrry Mejia will be ready to be a Major League starting pitcher. I don't know that we've necessarily reached that point yet; after all, I think a lot of people think Doc was rushed to the big leagues and that it hurt him down the road. But the Mets don't exactly have the starting rotation of the Phillies these days. Pelfrey's been struggling, Chris Young is dealing with some sort of (hopefully minor) injury, neither Niese nor Dickey is really getting the results so far, and Chris Capuano's only had one start, which was only so-so. With the exception of Pelfrey, who has been struggling the very worst so far, none of these players has pitched more than one good season in the last few years. Hopefully at some point one of them will get bumped to make room for the return of Johan Santana (and hopefully Santana will be good upon his return). But suppose one of them gets injured or just plain can't cut it? At what point will the Mets say, hey, we've got one hell of a pitching prospect ready to go down in Buffalo, let's give him a shot?