Mets' Niese takes some positives away from loss

Of the five pitchers in the Mets' rotation, Jonathon Niese still ranks as an unknown quantity, a 23-year-old lefthander with the promise of developing and easing some of the concern about how many reliable arms the Mets have once they get past Johan Santana.

Coming off surgery last August to repair the hamstring tendon in his right leg, Niese made the Opening Day roster for the first time and turned in a solid six-inning performance in a 3-1 loss to Florida last night at Citi Field. With some timely hitting by his teammates, Niese easily could have come away with a win instead of the loss, but he handled his end of the job well enough to inspire confidence in manager Jerry Manuel.

"I felt pretty good about Jon Niese,'' Manuel said. "He pitched well. I think [Jorge] Cantu gave us some trouble the whole series. He had a big hit, and [Gaby] Sanchez put together some real good at-bats. We've got to do a little more offense than what we did in this series.''

Niese gave up a two-out single to Dan Uggla in the first inning that drove in a run, but he settled in well through the first four innings as the Mets came back to tie it at 1 in the fourth. But the game got away from Niese in the fifth with Cameron Maybin on first after a single and two outs.

Cantu battled Niese until he got the pitch he wanted and drove a double to deep right-center that drove in Maybin with what turned out to be the winning run.

"It makes me mad that he got me on that one,'' Niese said of Cantu. "If I had to do it over again, I'd probably throw him a cutter in and break his bat. But I didn't. I threw him a fastball up and away, and he jumped on it.''

In the sixth, Niese gave up a leadoff single to Ronny Paulino, who advanced to second on a groundout and scored on a double by Sanchez. But Manuel left Niese in, and he got out of his last inning without further damage.

Niese appreciated the manager's show of confidence.

"Yeah, absolutely,'' Niese said. "Actually, I wanted to go out in the seventh, too. But it's one of those things where you battle through it and get him next time.''

Mets fans will be glad to hear Niese came away from his first start of the season feeling good about his post-operative condition.

"I feel great,'' he said. "Even deep in the game, I felt good. It really doesn't cross my mind with the whole leg injury. I just treat it as a normal start.''

It's still a learning process for Niese, but after pitching as competitively as he did against the Marlins, he felt good about his progress.

"I think I'm here for a reason,'' Niese said. "I'm not looking to fail. I go out there every time looking to succeed, and I think I'm capable of doing that.''