Mets

He has long been accused of being older than he admits to, a little detail that may or may not make Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez older than his 40-year-old Mets teammate, Tom Glavine, but definitely in possession of less tread on his arm than 34-year-old Pedro Martinez, his two soulmates in the Mets' starting pitching rotation. Like them, El Duque can't nudge his fastball much past 90 mph anymore without a brisk tailwind. But taken together, the three of them may comprise the most irritating starting rotation in baseball. For the best team in baseball.

"Well, I'd like to get a power pitcher," Mets general manager Omar Minaya said before last night's game as wistfully as another man might say, "I'd like a Porsche" or a Rolex, or a flat-screen TV. "But you know," he added, "our staff is still leading the league in strikeouts."

How? is the obvious question. And Hernandez ran a clinic on how last night against Cincinnati, even if the Mets did squander his seven innings of good work by coughing up two runs the moment he left on the way to a 4-2 loss on a muggy night at Shea.

Hernandez changed speeds and arm angles. He located the ball. The Reds' hitters walked up to the plate thinking Hernandez - even more than Martinez or Glavine - looks eminently hittable. "I don't think he's one of those guys you're scared to face," Reds catcher David Ross agreed. Then the Reds walked back to the dugout feeling stupid or frustrated - often both.

That's what Ross did after Hernandez froze him with a 61- mph curveball that left Ross blinking at plate umpire Dan Iassogna as Iassogna punched him out in the fourth inning.

"It was a slider-sidearm-sssssomething," Ross said, shaking his head. "That's not fun."

In the fifth inning, Hernandez dialed down the speed even more, lobbing up a 53-mph offering to Felipe Lopez that wouldn't have raised a bruise on a peach.

Compared to Hernandez's 90-mph fastball, Lopez said, the pitch seemed as if it were floating up to the plate like a beachball. And Lopez swung, all right - only to send a harmless fly ball to right.

"Fifty-three miles an hour," Lopez repeated. Now he was shaking his head, too. "I was waiting, waiting ... then waiting some more for it. Waiting too long. Since I've been in the big leagues, I've never seen a ball that slow."

"It's almost too slow to hit," Ross added.

When Reds slugger Ken Griffey Jr. finally sent a home run soaring toward rightfield to give the Reds a one-run lead in the sixth, it's no wonder Griffey stood at the plate admiring the blast for a very long time. Hernandez had struck out Griffey in his previous two at-bats.

Minaya admits the makeup of the Mets' pitching staff is not the way clubs usually win a pennant race. "Teams usually have at least one power pitcher," he said. "Right now, we're just doing it backwards. We start with command and control pitchers early. Then when we get to our pen, Heilman throws 94 mph. The other guy [Duaner Sanchez] throws 96. Then Billy [Wagner] throws 98."

Hernandez was good enough last night to make an argument for the Mets continuing along this way. Hernandez struck out seven in his seven innings - giving him a very power pitcher-like total of 75 Ks in 75 2/3 innings this season. He threw 117 pitches, scattered eight hits and allowed only two runs. It wasn't until he gave way in the eighth that Cincinnati pulled away by promptly loading the bases with none out against his replacement, Pedro Feliciano, then nicking Chad Bradford for a two-run double that ultimately decided the game.

But how long the Mets' starting rotation will stay this way may ultimately be a more interesting question to kick around than how long rookie outfielder Lastings Milledge will - or should - stick around.

Minaya means it when he says he's always ready, willing and daring enough to make a deal to improve the team. Though he's content for now to let the back end of the Mets' rotation - Hernandez, Steve Trachsel and Alay Soler - play things out, noting, "We're winning," the idea that there's some power pitcher out there, somewhere, admittedly is enticing.

"Who knows," Minaya said after the game, "maybe that's where Mike Pelfrey fits in."

Pelfrey, the hard-throwing former No. 1 pick whom the Mets have resisted rushing up from Double-A for now, is as close to a Porsche as the Mets have. Said Minaya, "We'll see."

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