Just a few months ago, the Mets’ starting rotation consisted, in the public imagination, of a 59-year-old, an 87-year-old, two failed prospects who had pitched flukishly well in the playoffs, a rookie, and wistful hopes for Pedro Martinez. Surprising many, it turned out to be just fine. The old men stayed healthy, and the failed prospects turned out to be frontline pitchers; the rookie pitched his way into the minors, but he was ably replaced by a long reliever. Among National League teams, only the San Diego Padres have had a better rotation.

Looked at this way, the fact that the long reliever, Jorge Sosa, is on the disabled list and may soon be joined by one of the failed prospects, Oliver Perez (who was placed on the 15-day DL retroactive to June 27 due to continued back pain), shouldn’t be seen as a particularly bad thing. Mets pitching is in perfectly good shape, and if anything, these injuries may keep it that way.

Two things should be kept in mind. The first is that rather than a shortage of starting pitching, the Mets have, in the big picture, a surplus. Perez, Tom Glavine, Orlando Hernandez, and John Maine are all locked into rotation spots, as a healthy Martinez will be. Sosa, who is 7–3 with a 3.92 ERA, has certainly pitched well enough to lay claim to a rotation spot. Mike Pelfrey, 0–6 record and all, is a top prospect, and long-term plans require that he has to be given a clear shot at proving himself worthy of a rotation job.

The second is that a great deal of theMets’ pitchingsuccess over the past couple of years is clearly due to pitching coach Rick Peterson having had success implementing a good system. How much credit he deserves is debatable, but his track record, dating back to his time in Oakland, clearly shows that under his tutelage erratic pitchers can become very good, and talented pitchers can become great. Most of the attention is paid to his unique methods — he pays a great deal of attention to biomechanics and has been known to encourage pitchers to spend time on visualization — but more should be paid to the fact that his pitchers usually focus on doing whatever it is they do well. He doesn’t have a system in the sense some coaches do, where they ask all their pitchers to do basically the same thing; he’s flexible enough to focus on Glavine’s need to use both sides of the plate and on Perez’s concentration problems. This means that assuming he’s given reasonable talent, he should be able to continue producing reasonable results.

For these reasons, these injuries strike me as, if not good in their own right, the kind that could lead to good things. They give the Mets another chance to take a good look at Pelfrey and at Jason Vargas, who is just 24, left-handed, and only three years removed from having been a second-round draft pick. Neither has been particularly inspiring this year, but either or both might well prove to be the next John Maine, or at least the next Jorge Sosa.

It’s worth keeping in mind that in that big picture, the Mets have some decisions to make. It’s no sure thing that they’ll make the playoffs but having survived an awful collapse without having even fallen out of first place before righting the ship, it will soon be time to start thinking about the playoffs, a factor that can make pitching situations awfully fluid awfully fast. Assuming Martinez comes back in reasonable health and that Perez’s back woes aren’t the kind that will do more than maybe cause him to skip a few starts, the Mets are going to have to make a hard decision involving these two, Maine, Hernandez, and Glavine, all of whom will deserve playoff starts, and not all of whom can have them. They’re also going to have some hard decisions to make about the bullpen — Scott Schoeneweis has been horrific, and Aaron Heilman iffy. Who among Pelfrey, Vargas, and Sosa might help out? That’s something the Mets can think about as they watch them pitch over the next stretch.

Pitchers are unreliable, for all sorts of reasons; you just have to assume the worst about them at all times. The Mets have spread their risks about as much as you can, and they’re building a pretty good track record of turning some very iffy pitchers into very useful ones. Injuries are never good, but they can create unexpected opportunities and lead to surprising things. I wouldn’t count on a blinding two weeks of stunning success leaving the Mets with eight pitchers all clearly worthy of rotation spots — but it wouldn’t surprise me much more than the fossils and the greenhorns running the table on the league through the first half. That, you may recall, might never have happened if the immortal Victor Zambrano and Duaner Sanchez hadn’t been hurt last year. Luck takes all sorts of forms.

tmarchman@nysun.com