Mar 09 2007 09:35 AM
Joel Sherman steals Edgy's scoop...
GREEN SPRING LOOKING LEAN
March 9, 2007 -- PORT ST. LUCIE - The storyline du jour - every jour - with the Mets revolves around starting pitching.
The focus is endlessly on the enigmatic and the arthritic, those attempting to rehab and those attempting to re-establish, the humble and the Humber. The rotation obsesses and overwhelms this organization. It contains every big question about a roster otherwise poised to dominate the NL East again.
It is easy, therefore, to put on blinders and concentrate solely on the daily horse race. Who's up, who's down? Who's in, who's out? Who's ready, who's not? So yesterday felt mostly about Orlando Hernandez's faulty spring debut and Mike Pelfrey's array of impressive power sinkers.
But within the context of an 8-7 Mets loss to the Orioles, Shawn Green evoked a significant issue that had nothing to do with starting pitchers by simply dribbling a single to right. The ball just snuck by the dive of range-restricted first baseman Aubrey Huff. Even Green conceded, "it wasn't the greatest hit in the world, it just got through."
However, when you are currently a one-hit blunder, you take what you can. Green has just that single in 18 spring at-bats. That usually would not mean much concern for a proven veteran. Except Green had his poorest season last year, which included a 34-game Mets cameo marked by a slower bat and legs than anticipated.
So in this Mets camp dominated by starting pitching issues, it is Green who is the position player whose low batting average is raising red flags. His starting status has become vulnerable. Due to his career credentials, Green will open the season in right field and be provided an opportunity to show that when the real games begin, he will flourish. But the leash will not be long.
The Mets do not have a contractual obligation to him beyond 2007. And they have young outfielders edging near readiness. Lastings Milledge is the most obvious. But club executives do not discount how quickly Carlos Gomez can come. They point out that Gomez and Milledge are both likely to begin in Triple-A, and that with the Mets needing to win in 2007, GM Omar Minaya would probably reach out to the outfielder performing best in New Orleans when the time comes, and not have a prescribed pecking order.
"There is no pressure," Green insisted. "Whatever will be, will be with that. It doesn't matter. That is how I am built. . . . All I can do is put it all out there."
For now, Minaya is actually as big a supporter as Green has in the organization. He confidently predicted "big things" for the lefty this season. But when asked if Green could rebound from a season of 15 homers and a career-low .432 slugging percentage, hitting coach Rick Down said only, "we'll find that out."
Down was Green's hitting coach with the Dodgers in 2000 when Green batted .297 with 24 homers and 99 RBIs. Down says that in Los Angeles, Green used to compete in batting practice with Gary Sheffield to see who could hit the most opposite-field homers, a game designed to keep both using the whole field. Encouragingly this spring, Down explained, Green was taking batting practice similar to that, launching homers beyond the center field backdrop at Tradition Field. Down says Green simply could not drive the ball like that last year.
However, this has yet to translate to the games. In this first two at-bats yesterday, Green struck out to fall to 0-for-15 this spring. He then got his inauspicious hit. He finished 1-for-5, this after an extra BP session Wednesday with some new technology that had him enthused, and this after he already had stated he had found a hitch in his swing that doomed his mechanics last year.
It is a long way to the season. Perhaps none of this will ultimately matter. Perhaps Green really has found something and, at age 35, will regenerate toward stardom.
But Green has done nothing yet this spring to erase last year and ease minds. He, instead, has become the biggest Mets uncertainty in the non-rotation category.
joel.sherman@nypost.com