Jenrry Mejia, NY Mets unravel in 4th inning of Saturday's 9-6 loss to ... - New York Daily News

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Jenrry Mejia allows five runs on six hits in three innings Saturday night at Miller Park.

BREWERS 9, METS 6

MILWAUKEE -- Kids. They say the darndest things. Like Jenrry Mejia, who keeps trying to subvert the company line about his future as a reliever. All right, all right, the Mets finally said. Start a game.

“I want to show them I want to be a starter,” Mejia said, while preparing to do so in the big leagues for the first time in two years.  

In Saturday’s 9-6 loss to Milwaukee, the 22-year-old made a weak case.  Mejia allowed five runs on six hits in three innings, and issued five walks.  Despite a 95-mile-per-hour fastball, he struck out no one.  

As incapable as he was of overpowering with his pitches, Mejia was even less able to controlling where they went. He threw just 32 of his 68 pitches for strikes. Through two innings, he had thrown 18 strikes, and 22 balls. At 50 pitches, he had thrown 25 strikes.  You get the idea; a poor showcase for the job he wants, before a jury that has already half-concluded he belongs in the bullpen.

The whole starter/reliever kerfuffle began all the way back in March 2010, in the last year of an old regime.  Omar Minaya was the general manager, Jerry Manuel the manager and Terry Collins the minor league field coordinator when Mejia emerged in spring training as the organization’s top arm, a 20-year-old too dynamic to keep out of the Opening Day bullpen.

That first act fizzled after a few months, and Mejia returned to the minors. Pitching coach Dan Warthen was the earliest, strongest voice in the organization singing for a Mejia future in the bullpen -- and he remains far from convinced otherwise.

“I think that he works hard to throw the baseball,” Warthen said this weekend. “It’s my opinion. With that, it is hard for me to fathom that he is able to go out there, and year after year throw 200 innings.”

Last year, when Mejia blew out his elbow after five Triple-A starts, Warthen’s concerns about the violence of the young man’s delivery appeared prescient.  Then, after returning from Tommy John surgery this year, Mejia presented a wrinkle: Not only did he voice a preference for starting, but he was much better in the minor leagues in that role.

Pitching for Triple-A Buffalo, Mejia posted a 5.48 earned run average as a reliever, before returning to the rotation. There, he went 2-3, with a 2.75 ERA. It was enough to force Warthen to wonder if his bullpen prediction was correct.

“Sure,” the pitching coach said. “How he succeeds certainly makes all the difference in the world.”

Collins remembered a slightly different first impression in 2010, one that left him more open to a starting assignment.

"He was the Matt Harvey of the organization,” Collins said, referring to the current hot rookie. “Everybody couldn’t wait for him to get here and see what he did. He made that club that spring in the bullpen, but then I saw him at the end of the summer pitch, that’s why I said, ‘there’s no reason why this guy can’t start.’ I saw plus stuff for nine innings.”

For that and other reasons, the team permitted Mejia this audition.  As Collins put it, “By seeing him here, I hope we’ll be able to make an intelligent determination of whether he can be a starting pitcher or not.”

The early verdict: Or not.