John Maine was the best pitcher in baseball in April, and there are few more perplexing players in the game right now. Many pitchers court danger, but not many do so as aggressively as Maine does, and of late, none in the game has been getting better results. When some Texas-bred horse who throws a cannonball for a sinker and a chainsaw for a curveball defies the laws of probability and dares every hitter who comes to the plate to do his best, it makes sense. When a long, gawky pitcher like Maine does so, throwing almost nothing but a good but not great fastball and breaking pitches that don’t do so much breaking, it’s admirable, but mystifying. And when no one can hit him, it makes no sense at all. How good is he, anyway?

The first point to note about Maine is that he will not, and cannot, continue to pitch as well as he has since the Mets traded for him. In a typical year, the best pitcher in the National League surrenders a .240 batting average on balls hit in play. Last year, Maine surrendered a .213 average, and this year that number is .186. Unless Maine is literally the best pitcher in baseball history, that number is going to rise; while some pitchers have some sustainable ability to induce bad contact, no one is this good. If Maine were preventing hits on balls in play at an average rate, his results would be more like those of a solid no. 3 starter, which is what one would think he is, given his stuff, track record, and good but unexceptional control.

Still, he isn’t preventing hits on balls in play at an average rate, and you can’t just say he’s been lucky. After all, his success is the result of a consistent approach: Throw fastballs very high and very low, keep the ball moving enough to prevent hitters from squaring up on it, and mix in enough changeups, cutting fastballs, and breaking pitches to keep hitters guessing. For most pitchers this would be a catastrophic policy, but Maine’s fastball has just enough late jump to it that it works. Hitter after hitter either weakly flies out, golfs one to the outfield, or strikes out. Last year, Maine was one of the more fly-ball prone pitchers around, but this year, only three pitchers are recording more outs by fly ball than he is, none of them meaningfully so.

Between all the balls flying through the air and the unsustainably low hit rate, Maine sets off all kinds of warning bells and alarms screaming “this will not continue,” no matter how considered his approach is. It’s one thing to simply throw fastballs and change-ups low and away, batter after batter, game after game, year after year, as so many Braves and Orioles pitchers did for so long; if a batter gets hold of one of those, he’s only going to be able to do so much with it. Maine, though, risks the longball with most of the crucial pitches he throws. He also risks the extra base hit, given that while Mets corner outfielders Moises Alou and Shawn Green bring many assets to a ballclub, they don’t bring passable outfield defense.

All of this doesn’t mean that he’s going to implode any time soon. There’s a difference, after all, between a no. 3 pitching above his head, getting a bit lucky, and recording a 1.35 ERA, and a scrub doing so. Maine is giving up basically a hit every other inning, and that’s why he isn’t giving up any runs. But if he holds everything else level — if he keeps striking out twice as many as he walks and keeps the ball in the park for the most part — he can be a very good starter while giving up twice as many hits as he’s giving up now.

The most worrisome thing about Maine isn’t anything he’s liable to do himself, really, but that Green and Alou have been skulking about in the outfield during all of his starts. As a big fan of the offensedefense platoon I’m biased, but there would be no better way to give the veterans a bit of rest and ensure Maine’s fly balls get their best chance of settling into someone’s glove than to spot-start Endy Chavez and, when he returns to the roster, Lastings Milledge. If Maine can do this with a center fielder and two fence posts behind him, after all, with three center fielders out there he might never give up a hit again.

tmarchman@nysun.com