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Fernando Nieve, who tore his right quadriceps while running out an infield grounder yesterday, has been placed on the disabled list, and outfielder Cory Sullivan has been called up from Triple-A to take his spot on the roster.

According to this,

"The team called up Sullivan rather than 22-year-old prospect Nick Evans (who played 15 games for the Mets prior to the All-Star break) because of Sullivan's versatility.

"In our situation now, in Cory's defense, he has a little bit more versatility than Nick," manager Jerry Manuel said. "He can play center field, he can play right field. Nick is a first baseman/left fielder basically, and he's still growing and learning those positions.""

Now, maybe I'm crazy (it's been argued), but to me, that doesn't really make any sense. Two days ago it seemed as though the Mets outfield consisted of Jeff Francoeur in right, Angel Pagan in center, and Gary Sheffield in left, with Fernando Tatis and Jeremy Reed as the backups. Okay, now Sheffield hurts himself.

If I'm the GM, I probably want to call up Nick Evans and play him in left field, but apparently they want Jeremy Reed to play left.

Here's the problem though. The man who went down was not needed to play center or right. Why should his replacement need to? Tatis can play right, and Reed can play all three spots, so a versatile outfielder is irrelevant. Basically, you can have one outfielder who can only play left.

I may have the answer. According to this, the Jerry Manuel is toying with the idea of having Livan Hernandez play some first base. Aha! Should that happen, Daniel Murphy might try to reinvent himself as an outfielder - one who can only play left.

If Jerry is really going to try this, the decision to leave Evans in Buffalo makes some sense. If he isn't - which certainly would seem more likely - it's a mystery.