From Marty Nolble:

Paul Lo Duca said Friday, “I expect to play” when he spoke of the Mets’ Saturday afternoon game at Wrigley. Why, after being unable to talk his way into the lineup for four games, was he so optimistic?

“Because,” he said, “I told them I’m playing.”

Ramon Castro started on Saturday, and Randolph later dicated Lo Duca probably won’t play until Tuesday.

Look, Its admirable that Paul LoDuca wants to play and doesn’t want to be on the DL. But there’s a reason he hasn’t so far. he can’t. The training staff knows that there’s nothing worse than re-injuring a hamstring. Then its six weeks. If something happens to Castro during a game they are going to have to runb LoDuca out there. And what happens if something happens to him?

This is a continuation of the sort of roster lunacy that really chaps my ass. Randolph and Minaya are so preoccupied with having enough pitchers, that they will put players health at risk and even putting them in a position to sacrifice games. They have already done so in the July 28 game against Washington in which LoDuca got hurt.

There are 12 pitchers on the roster now. Brian Lawrence is slated to pitch game two against the Braves. Either Aaron Sele or Jorge Sosa can still make that start even though they pitched this weekend.

Perhaps something is wrong with Aaron Heilman who’s not pitched since Tuesday and its his arm they are protecting. I hope not as he more than any other arm in the Mets bullpen is the one who could use the time off.

At any rate, I just do not like the decisions the Mets are making with their roster. At the very least, LoDuca should have been disabled. He’s not played as it is in seven days and could use the extra eight to make sure his hammy is healed.

With the roster as it is today, in a close game, the Met bench will only have three healthy players they can use. As Randolph won’t use his back-up catcher and now its the injured LoDuca.

Yesterday there was no righthanded bat on the bench. In a PH situation it would have been lefty-hitting Marlon Anderson or David Newhan or a poor option is switch hitting Rueben Gotay.