A healthy Niese is very nice for Mets

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla.

The first three weeks, Jonathon Niese recalled, were basically spent in bed, and crutches carried him through the next three weeks.

By the time he started walking around again, removing a protective brace, "My leg felt like Jell-O," the still young lefthander said.

Monday at Tradition Field, the only person whose lower appendages resembled the famous gelatin was Jason Pridie, who looked at a Niese curveball for strike three.

With that, Niese struck out the side in the first inning of this Mets intrasquad contest. An enthusiastic fan rang her cowbell.

When you have as disappointing a campaign as the 2009 Mets did, you're going to see a crowded house of potential bounce-backs now. So it stood in this first game of any sort that Niese, despite his promise and particularly gruesome injury, settled for the silver, trailing Jose Reyes' first-pitch triple.

Yet if we shouldn't get worked up over two shutout innings in an intrasquad game, we also shouldn't underestimate Niese's potential importance to these 2010 Mets and their starting rotation.

"I'll put it this way," Jerry Manuel said after the game, "if healthy, and performing as he was performing when he [got injured last year], and he's our fifth guy, then we're in pretty good shape. We're in better shape if that's the case.

"If he can do that, then that creates some versatility. He's a huge piece for me."

He's a guy who appeared on his way to figuring out the big leagues, putting up good numbers in his first four starts, before he tore his right hamstring Aug. 5 at Citi Field. Remember when he first injured himself stretching to cover first base, then collapsed in a heap when he tried to throw a precautionary pitch?

Given how many questions the Mets' starting rotation features, and their failure to capitalize on what was a buyer-friendly free-agent market for starting pitchers, Niese could cover up for others' inadequacies if he reaches his ceiling, which is probably a middle-of-the-rotation starter.

Angel Pagan and Alex Cora both swung through Niese's overhand curveball to kick off the first Mets game action of any kind since last Oct. 4, then Niese caught Pridie looking on the same pitch. In the second inning, Jeff Francoeur smacked a line drive to leftfield that Fernando Martinez tracked down, and Mike Jacobs walked before both Fernando Tatis and Josh Thole hit into forceouts at second base.

Again, it's silly to break down something like this - "It's still very, very, very early," Manuel said - and draw grand conclusions from it. Considering where Niese came from, however, this marks clear progress. Exactly five weeks prior, Niese threw here for the first time since his injury, and the Mets came away convinced that the lefty wouldn't be ready for the start of the season.

"When I went back home [from the minicamp], I kept testing it out, throwing," said Niese, an Ohio resident. "And then, when I came here, I threw probably four or five bullpens before I got to camp. Each bullpen progressively got better."

Now, Niese has no restraints. The Mets scheduled him to start Friday's split-squad game at the Cardinals.

New Mets backup catcher Henry Blanco, who has caught such dignitaries as Tom Glavine, Greg Maddux, Jake Peavy and Carlos Zambrano, said he was impressed with Niese's curveball, which he started throwing harder two years ago upon Sandy Koufax's recommendation. Said Blanco: "That's a pretty good pitch. If he continues to throw that, he'll get a lot of outs."

Especially when Niese combines the curveball with a fastball that tops 90 mph on the radar gun.

There aren't quite 8 million stories here, and I wouldn't quite label Port St. Lucie a "naked city." They have a Chipotle here now! But there sure are a lot of rebound tales, and Niese's should rank among the most intriguing.