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It now appears that closer Billy Wagner is out indefinitely with a sore left elbow. He may be out for the entire year, and unless the Mets become the 1927 Yankees with their lineup, Wagner's loss hampers the Mets' challenge for the NL East Division title.

Currently in first place in the East with a 1.5 game lead over the Philadelphia Phillies, the Mets are using a closer by committee plan to ride out their hot relief pitcher. Somehow, "hot relief pitcher" and "New York Mets" seem equal to the oxymoron's Jumbo Shrimp and Military Intelligence.

With only 35 or so games left in the season, pitchers on all teams vying for a playoff spot need to do more for their teams. Certain pitchers have to perform in different roles and all pitchers must be prepared to throw more often. For example, hot relievers must be prepared to go several days in a row and top starters might need to pitch on less rest.

Therefore, the Mets are likely to need more work from a relief corps that has not performed well as of late. Manager Jerry Manuel does not want to name a closer as to avoid the pressure put upon a guy. But, when a game is late and close and a relief pitcher is not being called upon in the 7^th or 8^th innings - he pretty much realizes that he will be the "closer" that evening. The nerves might come up at that point, no?

Anyway, the Mets need to avoid their overmatched bullpen at all costs.

It was July 22 of this season and Johan Santana came out of a crucial game against the arch rival Phillies, with both the Mets and Phillies tied for first place. Santana held a 5-2 lead, but he declined to pressure manager Jerry Manuel into letting him pitch the 9th, likely preserving the lead and the game. Even though closer Billy Wagner was unavailable for this crucial 9th inning, Santana did not take the ball in the 9th. After 105 pitches, Santana must have felt he was done. (Somewhere, CC Sabathia is snickering).

The Mets bullpen collapses and the Phillies rally for 6 runs and win 8-6.

In various radio segments I do and in an article written on dugoutcentral.com, I blasted Santana for not "manning up" and getting the complete game victory. Those were the types of games the Mets needed Santana to be "the man" when they traded away four prospects over the winter to Minnesota.

After that July 22 game, Santana must have learned the lesson about being the ace of a staff, because since then he has been nothing short of brilliant. Five starts, a 3-0 record and TWO complete game victories, including Sunday's 3 hit shutout over the Pittsburgh Pirates.

A very big kudos to Johan for those two complete game victories! He deserves the credit for coming through late in the season.

But, Johan's other two starts since then were no-decision's, both of which were blown saves by the bullpen and costing Johan two victories. This season the Mets bullpen has cost Santana five victories.

This should not happen any more this season.

The Mets should forgo pitch counts for the balance of the season when Santana pitches and allow him to go the distance in almost all the rest of his starts. With the division race (remember when it was the Pennant race?) likely going down to wire again with the Phillies (and possibly the Marlins, too), the Mets need to win every one of Santana's last 8 or 9 starts.

Santana has pitched very effectively in almost every start for 6 or 7 innings. Jerry Manuel needs to let him know that his job description has been upped to 8 or 9 innings per start. With the Mets bullpen blowing another lead Monday afternoon, there is no reason for Manuel to ever pull Santana in favor of mediocre middle relievers like Aaron Heilman, Pedro Feliciano, Joe Smith, Scott Schoeneweis and Duaner Sanchez. For example, with a 3-2 lead in the 7th inning in his next start, with men on first and second and one out - I want Santana on the mound in this clutch situation - not any of the above relievers!

Also, Oliver Perez has only averaged 5.2 innings per his 26 starts this year. This average is somewhat low because of three very bad short stints. Remember that one third of an  inning debacle against the San Francisco Giants? But, those three real bad starts were earlier in the season. Perez has thrown very well his last 10 starts, going 4-2 with a 2.19 ERA. More importantly, the Mets are 8-2 in those 10 starts.

Still, in those 10 real good starts, Perez has been allowed to average 6.2 innings per. This is unacceptable. He is much better a pitcher than any of the relievers mentioned above. Perez is very likely not to return to the Mets next season, so the Mets manager needs to begin to treat him like a rental player - similar to Sabathia. Let Perez go 120+ pitches every game and get through 8 or more innings.

Of course, the only time to remove Santana and Perez earlier would be if the Mets are down by a few runs. I wouldn't even remove them for a pinch hitter if the Mets were only down a run or two.

The Mets two top starters are better than anybody in the bullpen, even after 100 pitches. They should be allowed to remain in all games which are close.

I would even treat Mike Pelfrey the same way because he usually is very economical with pitches and does not often have a big inning against him. But, I know the Mets are already worried about his total innings.

Jerry Manuel needs to only worry about making the playoffs this season, and for the remainder of the season not worry about Santana's or Perez' pitch count. CC Sabathia (8-0, 1.60 ERA) is the ace of the Milwaukee Brewers staff and last night recorded his 5th complete game since being traded.

Santana and Perez have the ability to be the complete game aces the Mets sorely need; they just need Jerry Manuel be more like Brewers manager Ned Yost.

The author, Joseph DelGrippo, regularly writes for Mike Silva's http://www.nybaseballdigest.com/ where this item originally was published.