The Mets are doing the right thing for the wrong reason Sunday when they give a start to Logan Verrett. Now, that’s better than doing the wrong thing for the wrong reason, like calling up a lefty reliever to go to an eight-man bullpen because their useless LOOGY makes their relief corps too thin. Still, it will be a good day for the Mets when they completely move away from hope and seniority and move towards a team that believes in sunk costs and giving chances to rookies beyond last-resort moves.

Verrett came up in the Mets organization as a starting pitcher. Prior to 2015, Verrett appeared in 69 games as a professional and all 69 were starts. Last year in Triple-A, Verrett led the team in both innings and wins and had a 4.33 ERA, which was better than top prospect Noah Syndergaard’s mark in the same loop. He was a solid pitching prospect stuck in a system with pitchers with better pedigrees.

Because of this, the Mets left him exposed in Rule 5 and lost him, first to the Orioles and then to the Rangers. A Rule 5 pick has to stay in the majors and because of this, he was moved to the bullpen this year. He didn’t do too hot in Texas in this role and wound up back in Triple-A for the Mets. In Las Vegas, they utilized him mainly as a reliever and then began to stretch him out as a starter, and after he finally built up to a 7.2 IP outing, he was called up to New York to be a … reliever.

Verrett did a great job in this role and allowed just 1 ER in 12.1 IP and posted a 0.649 WHIP. So of course the Mets sent him down because he was a rookie. Back in Las Vegas, he again found himself as a starter. In five games with the 51s, he posted strong peripherals (23 IP, 6 BB, 26 Ks, 2 HR) and earned a call back to the Mets as a … reliever.

In this second stint with the Mets, Verrett was used once and removed after six pitches and a scoreless inning because the Mets wanted him to make a start. Hallelujah, they are finally going to cut bait with Bartolo Colon to make room for Verrett! Um, no. They’re going to keep the guy in the rotation with a 5.68 ERA over his last 18 games. Instead they’re going to skip a turn for Matt Harvey because any time you can screw up the routine for a pitcher with a 1.45 ERA in his previous 11 games, you just have to do it.

Snark aside, the Mets are skipping Harvey due to the belief that if they keep his innings total around 180 this year, somehow he’ll be healthy the rest of his career; however, if that number is around 193, he’s doomed to the disabled list again. Unfortunately, that’s not snark. That’s really how the Mets are operating. They’re hoping – that’s all it is, hope – that a completely arbitrary innings limit will keep Harvey healthy. And if they have to sacrifice Harvey starts in a pennant race and make him pitch on an irregular basis to reach that artificial limit, so be it.

So, Verrett’s topsy-turvy season continues and the Mets ask him to make a spot start, his first career start in the majors, in Colorado. Hey, maybe the guy used to pitching in Las Vegas won’t be spooked by pitching in this environment. Regardless, we should be happy that the Mets are giving a shot to a rookie and not recycling Dillon Gee. Would the Mets have done this if Gee didn’t pop off about being sent to the bullpen earlier in the year? The Mets will tolerate poor performance from a veteran. But even seniority won’t allow such insubordination as to question the moves of the great and powerful Oz.

The Mets’ bullpen is in tough shape right now because of poor performances by starters and Terry Collins’ insistence on using his two best relievers in back-to-back games with five-run leads. Hopefully Verrett finds himself facing a demoralized Rockies team today and he can give the team a seven-inning outing. As long as we’re wishing, maybe the offense will give the team a big enough lead that Collins will feel safe closing out the game with Hansel Robles and the useless lefties.

And who knows – perhaps a strong outing by Verrett today will force the Mets to reexamine his role going forward. Maybe a good outing by the rookie will force Colon to the DL with the same shady injury that sidelined Bobby Parnell. Except the Mets don’t even have to invent something out of whole cloth here. Colon was hit by a batted ball and we could see on TV how it immediately swelled up on him. Sounds like an injured wrist to me.

New York is 2-9 in the last 11 games started by Colon. But there’s been no public talk about removing him from the rotation. It’s good to have seniority. Perhaps there’s been a lot of talk behind closed doors. At least, let’s hope there’s been that talk. At this point, it’s hard to imagine that the Mets’ chances of winning are worse with Verrett than they are with Colon.

On some level, the club is aware of the need to upgrade the staff. Shoot, they allowed Collins to go yell at an injured guy with 54.1 innings of MLB experience, hoping that would accelerate his return to the majors. That move wasn’t based on seniority, so we know what prompted it.

All we can say for sure is that Verrett is here now and in his limited MLB experience, he’s done a fine job. He deserves an opportunity to start and it’s not his fault the Mets are foffing Harvey in order to make that happen.

So, let’s root for Verrett to pitch the game of his life today. Maybe then the Mets will go with a six-man rotation in September by adding Verrett and Steven Matz and subtracting the veteran with the big contract and the rotten results. What a great thing it would be for the Mets to employ their best pitchers in their rotation in the heat of a playoff push.

Even if they’re rookies.

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