Mejia staying in Mets' bullpen
Jerry Manuel said Jenrry Mejia (above) will be a reliever for the Mets in 2010; he won't be sent to the minors to build endurance so he can be a starter. (May 22, 2010) Credit: Christopher Pasatieri
Jenrry Mejia will be in the bullpen indefinitely. Period. End of story.
That's what Jerry Manuel said before last night's Subway Series finale to quell speculation - fueled by the manager, incidentally - that Mejia soon would be sent down to Triple-A Buffalo and be used as a starting pitcher.
The last of those rumblings occurred late Saturday before the Mets announced that Manny Acosta, and not Mejia, would be optioned to Buffalo to make room for the activation of Ryota Igarashi from the disabled list.
The return of Igarashi to his eighth-inning role should allow Manuel to better arrange his bullpen, with Mejia targeted for the seventh, along with Fernando Nieve, and Pedro Feliciano to remain more of a lefthanded specialist. Manuel also was encouraged by Mejia's outing Saturday night, when he pitched a scoreless seventh and whiffed Mark Teixeira.
"I wanted to see Mejia pitch in this environment and see how he responded to it, and he did very well," Manuel said. "We discussed him at length many times as to what's right for him, what's right for the team, how does it fit in the future . . . We've had conversations about him in a lot of different ways."
Dickey set for Tuesday
The Mets completed their rotation plans for this week with knuckleballer R.A. Dickey getting Tuesday's start against the Phillies, followed by Hisanori Takahashi on Wednesday and Mike Pelfrey on Thursday.
Extra bases
Daniel Murphy went 5-for-5 with a double and three RBIs Sunday in Class A St. Lucie's 10-4 loss to Lakeland. Murphy is batting .727 and played only first base for St. Lucie. He is expected to be assigned to Triple-A Buffalo soon.
