Mets' productive offseason bears fruit (alternate reality edition)

The following things happened on Wednesday:

• Joel Pineiro pitched seven strong innings, allowing one run on five hits and no walks while striking out seven.
• In a game in which 21 runs were scored, Nelson Figueroa pitched 3 1/3 strong innings, giving up one run on two hits and a walk, to get the win.
• Felipe Lopez went 2 for 3.
• Orlando Hudson singled in a run off of John Lackey.

Lackey, by the way, allowed two runs in 6 2/3 to get the win. His ERA so far this year is 1.42. But I left Lackey out of the above list because, while I wanted him on the team, the decision to sign Jason Bay instead is at least defensible (though it would be nice to see Bay with more than one RBI, the same number that Ollie Perez has).

But Pineiro could have been a Met, Figueroa should still be in the organization, and if last night's game was going to end up in the hands of a middle infielder, I would have much rather seen Hudson or Lopez up there than Alex Cora.

Cora was batting - against a lefty - because Jerry Manuel for some reason used Fernando Tatis as a pinch-runner earlier in the inning, when it would have made much more sense to use Cora as the pinch-runner and Tatis as the pinch-hitter. Or, as reader Guinness points out, use a pitcher such as John Maine, who has pinch-ran before.

Yesterday afternoon, I wrote that it was too early to talk about replacing Jerry Manuel. Well, as Yogi Berra would say, it gets late early out there.