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Heilman trying to get back on track for Mets

DAVID LENNON | david.lennon@newsday.com

May 9, 2008

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LOS ANGELES

It was a sleepy Wednesday morning in the visitor's clubhouse at Dodger Stadium and many of the players were either eating breakfast or dragging themselves to the indoor batting cages. Aaron Heilman was among the early crowd that arrived, as evidenced by the street clothes already hanging in his locker at 9:30 a.m., and his current book, "Dark Mission: The Secret History of NASA," sitting on the shelf.

To find the man himself, you had to follow the sounds of hand-to-hand combat and explosions coming from the next room, where Heilman was immersed in the arcade classic, "Captain America and the Avengers." For a pitcher struggling with his command, it was appropriate that Heilman picked the superhero archer, Hawkeye, to battle an assortment of villains.

For a few minutes, at least, Heilman was living outside his own Notre Dame-educated head, which even he believes may be the cause of his early struggles this season. Physically, Heilman says he is fine. But after pitching to a 9.00 ERA in his first five appearances, and eventually losing his job as the Mets' primary setup man, he needed time to recalibrate.

"It's one of my tendencies to try and make a good pitch better - when it just needs to be good," Heilman said, a few moments after Hawkeye was flattened by a super-villain named Whirlwind. "It's in my nature to go out there and try to get better and improve. To build on what you've done before. But there's something to the thinking that once you get there, just be consistent."

Right now, the Mets, or at least manager Willie Randolph, are not quite sure that Heilman is good enough to be the primary setup man for Billy Wagner. There has been no official proclamation, and Randolph insists that there are no defined roles for anyone other than Wagner.

"He's been through this before," Randolph said of Heilman. "He'll be fine. Just because he's out of that eighth spot doesn't mean he won't be there again."

But there's a reason why Heilman has been called in no later than the sixth inning in each of his last six appearances. It's not a coincidence that this started happening after Heilman let the April 21 game slip away against the Cubs in Chicago.

Maybe that wasn't entirely his fault; it was Jose Reyes' error that opened the floodgates. But Heilman followed that by drilling Aramis Ramirez, giving up a hit to Kosuke Fukodome and then serving up a two-run single to Ronny Cedeño with two outs. Heilman has not seen the eighth inning since that evening at Wrigley, and for now, he seems OK with the new assignment.

"Nobody said anything to me about it," Heilman said. "But I think you try to put guys in situations to succeed. And when you're struggling a little bit, it's tough to find that rhythm again if you continue to get thrown into the fire.

"Sometimes you need a little breather, a little mental breather, so you can say, 'Relax, make your pitches and don't try to do anything else.' There's no formula for it."

Now that he's been moved to middle relief, and Duaner Sanchez has taken over the eighth-inning duties, Heilman has shown signs of reversing his downward spiral. In his last four appearances, Heilman has pitched 5 1/3 scoreless innings, allowing only two hits and striking out five. Wagner, who knows Heilman as well as anyone on the Mets, believes that he's starting to shed some of the mental burden that dragged him down.

"You can't overwhelm him with the thought process," Wagner said. "You can't worry about mechanics, and since he throws every day, he can't really work on stuff on the side. He just has to go out there and compete. You can't change your approach. I can't throw knuckleballs because guys know I throw fastballs. You live and die with what you have out there."

For Heilman, it's all about locating his fastball to make the changeup more effective. When he's not throwing strikes, opposing hitters sit on the change and smash it out of the park, as they did four times against Heilman in his first 13 innings of the season. But now that he's pieced together a decent streak, maybe Heilman can get his old job back. But he won't know until the bullpen phone rings for him again in the eighth inning.

"You try to come to the park every day with a new mind-set, a fresh slate and a short memory," Heilman said. "You can't try to make up for something you did yesterday."

Farm report: Next arm in line? Armas Jr.

With the Mets stuck in a seemingly endless holding pattern for the return of either Pedro Martinez or Orlando Hernandez, it appears the next person on the starting pitcher depth chart could be Tony Armas Jr., who couldn't compete for a job in spring training because he barely showed up.

Actually, Armas, delayed by visa issues, did make it for the final week, which gave him enough time to unpack his bag and then move his belongings to minor-league camp.

Now that he's settled in at Triple-A New Orleans, Armas is looking like a viable option for the Mets if they happen to lose another starter while waiting for Martinez and El Duque. Armas, who just turned 30, does have nine major-league seasons under his belt and is 1-3 with a 3.02 ERA for the Zephyrs. He also has 28 strikeouts and eight walks in 41 2/3 innings.

"He's throwing pretty well," assistant GM John Ricco said. "Judging by what he's done so far, it's a good feeling knowing he's down there."