HEILMAN

So much for Point Determined. Bluegrass Cat ruined my weekend. It's ok though. Mets took two out of three against Braves again and despite Zambrano's elbow injury I can't complain much about the 21-9 start. But, I am a finicky fan so I must take Willie Randolph to task for something. Now, like I mentioned earlier Zambrano is out for the year with a torn tendon in the elbow. So that leaves us with two holes in our pitching staff for the foreseeable future. Bannister went down with a hammy pull a week and a half ago, his replacement John Maine went on the DL with a finger sprain of some sort. Hence Lima time on Sunday.

Now what I would do is put Aaron Heilman into the rotation for the remainder of the year. He wants to start again, he's a proven starter and unlike two years ago he's ready. You've may have seen him come out of the pen and toss scoreless innings like an 88' Hershiser. The guy is ready. He's smart, he locates, he hits low 90's, has three pitches, one of them is a great change-up and he studies hard. But no, Willie don't want to mess with the bullpen and it's success. Listen Willie, starters are a bit harder to come by than 7th inning set-up men. It's not like Sanchez isn't doing his thing. Feliciano, Bradford or Oliver can be the 7th inning guy, or even (gulp, dare I say) Julio! Of course using Julio is tight situations may be crazy but use your judgment Willie. Maybe Omar can find you a guy, it's early but maybe there is a veteran out there that can help. Fortunato got clobbered yesterday, Royce Ring ain't ready. Where's Tyler Yates? Humber can't start yet? Soler I haven't even seen yet. It's like his starts a secret NASA mission.

So instead we get Jeremi Gonzalez and Jose Lima has answers for right now. As we head into a tough road trip. Aaron Heilman is going to flip out one day. And he has every right to be.