Mike Pelfrey is making a statement that neither Mets owner Jeff Wilpon nor general manager Omar Minaya is willing to make: He wants Jerry Manuel to remain as the manager.
Pelfrey is not doing it with words, but as a one-man salvage crew. He is performing like a stopper, an ace and a job saver.
He halted a four-game losing streak in Colorado in April, a five-game losing streak in Atlanta last week with Wilpon lurking after flying in for an emergency summit, and last night he helped change the conversation from Manuel’s job status to the Mets actually winning this Subway Series.
No wonder Jason Bay called Pelfrey the “rock” of the Mets’ staff.
Pelfrey outpitched the Yankees’ Phil Hughes and the perpetually un-clutch Mets produced five two-out RBI hits to even this version of the Subway Series at a game apiece with a 5-3 triumph over the Yankees.
And here are two questions to ponder: Who would you take for the next five years, Hughes or Pelfrey? And if the Mets had to win a game today who would you start on full rest in 2010, Pelfrey or Johan Santana?
Pelfrey made a statement against Hughes yesterday, and Santana will get to make one of his own tonight when he faces Yankees ace CC Sabathia in the Subway Series finale.
“I know everyone in the clubhouse feels that way about Santana, that when he pitches we will win,” Pelfrey said. “And I want them to feel that way about me. . . . It is a big thing for me that when I show up at the park on the day I pitch, I expect to win. I want the clubhouse to feel the same.”
Pelfrey wants that responsibility, wants it shed from the manager. He insists the Mets have a roster good enough to win. But, right now, Pelfrey more than any other Met, is accepting that burden with an All-Star caliber response. And that is about growth, on the mound and between the ears.
As a pitcher, Pelfrey has graduated in a way that Chien-Ming Wang never did, by expanding effectively from being almost exclusively a sinker-ball specialist. Now he uses his fastball early — he threw a first-pitch strike to 19 of 26 Yankees — and then will mix a changeup and, especially, his splitter. He is suddenly working with more weapons at different speeds.
But that would not mean quite as much if he had not advanced from the twitchy mess he could become at times in years past. With the help of a sports therapist, Pelfrey is now projecting confidence, and that manifested in the sixth inning last night.
He was protecting a 3-0 lead and had runners on second and third. Francisco Cervelli hit a rather meek comebacker that somehow skirted between Pelfrey’s legs for a charitably scored RBI single. Of the play, Pelfrey said, “I felt pretty un-athletic having that ball go off my glove and cleat.”
That kind of folly, even Pelfrey admitted, would have undermined him last year; would have moved him to think of the play unmade rather than refocusing on the next hitter. But, as Pelfrey said, “mentally I am now in the right place.”
He seduced Randy Winn with a changeup, his 108th and final pitch, and induced a grounder to second. So he won for the fourth time after a Mets loss, improved to 6-1 overall, lowered his ERA to 2.86 and, more important, lowered the temperature around his manager, for at least one day anyway.
At this moment, the Mets are operating with three-fifths of their rotation either on the disabled list (John Maine, Jonathon Niese) or banished to the bullpen (Oliver Perez). They are plugging in elsewhere and looking for stability from the top of the rotation. And now Santana has a sidekick.
Regardless of the negativity swirling around him, Pelfrey is establishing himself as a complete pitcher. He is proving impervious to a defeatist atmosphere. He is suddenly the guy the Mets want on the mound at the most dire moment.
On some days, he has appeared to be all that is standing between Jerry Manuel and unemployment.