Mets set to take on Cards

Marty Noble at Mets.com writes about the Mets and their preparation to take on the Cardinals in the NLCS:

"It's huge that we can have it lined up the way we want," Paul Lo Duca said Saturday in the celebration saturation. "I mean we'd do what we have to, no matter what. But this way we've got Tommy [Glavine] lined up to go in the first game, and we set it up whichever way we want after that."

The Mets' rotation has been an uncertainty for months. And though manager Willie Randolph declined to go beyond Glavine's assignment for Wednesday night at Shea Stadium, the skipper can arrange it in whatever way he and pitching coach Rick Peterson think it will be most advantageous. With the same pitchers available (Glavine, John Maine, Steve Trachsel and Oliver Perez) and the same unavailable (Pedro Martinez and Orlando Hernandez), Randolph and Peterson have zero wiggle room.

They almost are forced to use Glavine, Maine, Trachsel and Perez in that order. Glavine would start Games 1 and 5, Maine Games 2 and 6, Trachsel Games 3 and 7. Game 4 would be left to Perez, the man least likely. But on a postseason in which Kenny Rogers emerges as a hero, who can say who is likely or unlikely?