Is Maine Tired?

John Maine was, without a doubt, the Mets staff Ace for the first half of the season. Posting an ERA that hovered around 2.84 before the All-Star break was something that Maine has never done in his short career. Even with that impressive display he found himself left off the roster.

He started his downward slope on the start right after the break, going 4.2 innings and giving up 4 earned runs. Maine expressed that he hadn’t been working out or training during his extended break, just relaxing and Peterson even shrugged this off as a “Live and Learn” lesson for Maine and said he would be better on his next start. The only problem with this was that Maine hasn’t been good or even better since the All-Star break.

Since the All-Star break, John Maine has given up 25 runs in 30 innings (6 starts). This is hardly the same John Maine that we all waited to watch pitch every 5th day. There has been only two incidents where Maine has given up less than 4 runs in an outing (July 24th – 2 and July 29th - 0) and on the last outing against the Nationals, the 29th, the game was cut short in the 5th inning due to the rain.

So far this season, Maine has pitched 145.1 innings and it has been, by far, the most innings he has pitched in the Majors in on season. In fact, if you add up all of his innings from his previous 3 seasons they only come out to 133.2 ( 2004 – 3.2, 2005 – 40; 2006 – 90). Could this be the reason for the sudden drop in success for him? I seem to think so.

The problem with this is that the Mets can’t afford to rest Maine for even one start as the lead in the East has been shaved down to 5 games over the Braves and the Phillies. Maine is simply going to have to tough out this stretch and hope his second wind shows up fast or he and the Mets will be in for a world of hurt.

I have complete faith in the fact that John Maine will regain form in a start or two and will lower his ERA to a near sub three. I hope I am right, for the sake of the Mets and Met fan’s health.