Mixed results by Mejia good enough for Mets

CHICAGO - Anyone hoping to see the second coming of Dr. K Saturday at Wrigley Field - and that includes the Mets - soon realized that Jenrry Mejia is not yet ready to dominate the National League.

Or even the lowly Cubs, who knocked around Mejia for eight hits and four runs in five innings as the Mets stumbled to a 5-3 loss, their fifth defeat in the first six games of this road trip.

Mejia showed glimpses of his potential, displaying a fastball that reached 96 mph and a decent changeup. But his curveball was not as sharp and he got to 96 pitches much too quickly to stick around.

"I think it was promising to see him perform in the manner that he did," Jerry Manuel said. "I think he's going to be OK."

The Mets have had Mejia on the fast track since spring training. That's when Manuel compared his cut fastball to Mariano Rivera's signature pitch and successfully lobbied to put him on the Opening Day roster as a member of the bullpen.

Five months later, and after a minor-league demotion to groom him for the rotation, Mejia, 20, became the youngest pitcher to start for the Mets since Dwight Gooden did it at the same age in 1985.

"I wasn't nervous because I've been here before," said Mejia (0-3). "I'll be a lot better next time."

Geovany Soto and Marlon Byrd each had an RBI double off Mejia, and Xavier Nady added a sacrifice fly. The Cubs scored another run on a wild pitch when catcher Mike Nickeas, making his major-league debut, couldn't handle a curveball that should have whiffed Tyler Colvin for the third out of the fifth inning.

Nickeas had been called up from Triple-A Buffalo on Wednesday, and Manuel chose to start him - rather than the more experienced Henry Blanco - because Nickeas worked with Mejia in the minors.

But an experienced major-league catcher might have had more luck helping Mejia navigate the Cubs' lineup, and Manuel later admitted that going that way might have made a difference.

"I think those two seemed to mesh well early," Manuel said of the Mejia-Nickeas battery. "But to get through later, I probably should have switched and went to [Blanco]. I probably should have used a relief catcher at that time. I think going forward, I think Blanco or Josh [Thole] could probably help in that matter because of their knowledge of the National League."

For all the hype surrounding Mejia's fastball, the Cubs seemed to enjoy hitting it, and his curveball didn't fool them, either.

Soto smacked a hanging curve for his second-inning double. In the third, Ramirez crushed a 94-mph fastball for a double that caromed off the ivy in centerfield. Byrd teed off on another fastball, a tick slower at 93, for his RBI double in the fifth.

Overall, it was another step along the learning curve for Mejia, who is slotted to remain in the rotation for the rest of the season in order for the Mets to evaluate him as a potential starter in the 2011 rotation.

"You've got to make sure you see him again," Manuel said, "because if you can bring that kind of stuff along, then you've got a good piece for the future, at least as a fifth guy [next year]. Coming in, you can feel very confident and comfortable going forward. That's a good piece if you keep evolving and developing."