FanHouse Brad Thompson

At this point, whatever remaining Mets players are healthy should be encased in bubble wrap.

A day after second baseman Luis Castillo sprained his left ankle on the dugout steps -- the Mets said he is day-to-day, and when they say that, they usually end up being wrong -- lefty Jonathon Niese left Wednesday's start in the second inning with a strained right hamstring.

"From what I understand right now we suspect it to be a tear," manager Jerry Manuel said.

As it turns out, it was a complete tear of the right hamstring from the bone, and the team announced Niese would have surgery and miss the rest of the season Wednesday night.

Starting Five is our wrapup of the previous day's baseball action, with a quick nod to what is ahead.

You Oughta Know ...
That the AL East is a dead heat 85 games into the season, perhaps portending an epic race through the dog days of summer and into the fall. The Yankees pulled even with the Red Sox Thursday in baseball's toughest division by virtue of a win over the Twins and Boston's loss to the Royals.

New York, which is 48-23 against Minnesota since 2000, has been on fire since the latest A-Rod drama during a series June 19-21 in Miami. The Yanks have gone 13-3 since losing two of three to the Marlins that weekend to erase the gap between them and Boston.

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On Deck is FanHouse's look at the day's most intriguing baseball matchups

New York Yankees (39-33) vs. San Diego Padres (31-42) - 1:05PM Est.

When Hank Steinbrenner came out earlier this season and basically demanded that Joba Chamberlain stopped being used out of the bullpen, and placed into the starting rotation, his general manager and manager kind of just ignored him. Hank was just doing anything in his power to try to be like his dad, and after dealing with George for all those years, Brian Cashman had become pretty adept at tuning his boss out.

Besides, the Yankees starters were just off to a rough start to the 2008 season, and things would turn around soon enough. Only they never did, as Phil Hughes struggled, Ian Kennedy got sent down, and Mike Mussina looked like a shell of a shell of his former self. So eventually Cashman and Joe Girardi had to cave, and move Joba into the starting rotation (and now that Chien-Ming Wang is out they're lucky they did).

His first start didn't go very well, but in the two starts since, Joba has improved each time out. This afternoon he'll be making his fourth start of the season, but will he finally pick up his first victory as a starter?

In their past six games, the St. Louis Cardinals have allowed 54 runs. They've managed to win three of them, but that's really besides the point. Giving up nine runs a game isn't going to get you a .500 record over the long run, and it's certainly not going to help the Cardinals erase their 7.5 game deficit in the NL Central. And finally, after a disastrous week, there's going to be some changes in the St. Louis staff... kind of.

In order to help their beleaguered bullpen, the Cards are calling up Anthony Reyes to start against the A's today and putting Kip Wells and Brad Thompson (who both made short starts this week) in the bullpen. The Cards would probably just like to erase Wells' existence from the team altogether, but with Braden Looper's recent shoulder troubles it appears Wells will be back in the rotation next week. Wells has quite possibly been the worst regular started in the NL this year with his 2-11 record, 6.93 ERA, 1.64 WHIP, and 42 walks against only 57 strikeouts in 76 and 2/3 innings.

Wells himself doesn't seem too bothered by it. Tony La Russa may feel differently.

"I haven't really paid attention to much off-field stuff," Wells said. "I try to give myself the best chance to be successful, and speculating as to what and why and when is just more clutter."

La Russa would not project Wells' long-term role, saying only, "Right now long term doesn't have a lot of meaning."

La Russa might mean he's only worried about the right now with his team. But he might mean that Wells doesn't have a long-term future in St. Louis. With his performance this year, I'm betting on the latter.