Mets Designate Miguel Batista for Assignment

The Mets announced on Twitter Sunday morning that they have designated Miguel Batista for assignment to make room for Elvin Ramirez.

Batista lasted just three innings in Saturday’s loss to the Dodgers, allowing six runs, in his audition for Dillon Gee’s spot in the rotation. Batista appeared in 30 games for the Mets, five as a starter. Overall he was 1-3 with a 4.82 ERA. In 46.2 innings he allowed 53 hits and 31 walks — just too many baserunners.

The Mets also announced that Jeremy Hefner will get the start on Wednesday against the Nationals. Who starts Thursday in the opener in Arizona? Unknown at this point. Matt Harvey and Collin McHugh are the leading candidates thus far.

The lack of depth in the starting rotation was a glaring problem leading into the season, a problem that Sandy Alderson chose to ignore in the off-season. All he did was pray that everybody stays healthy. Well, those prayers were not answered as two starters are already gone for the year and another is on the DL. That leaves just two of the original rotation members still active.

Certainly Alderson cannot be blamed for the injuries to Mike Pelfrey and Dillon Gee. But he knew Johan Santana was fragile — he should have had a plan in place to replace him if/when he went down. Except for signing the even more fragile Chris Young, Alderson did nothing.

Now the Mets are left with a makeshift rotation. You can blame Alderson for that.