"As if the Mets' already beleaguered pitching staff needed any more bad news, there is this little ray of sunshine: Chris Young, the Mets' most effective starter to date, has biceps tendinitis and will have his next start bumped from Friday to Sunday.

"We talked after his last start and the next day he was a little tender and so we had him looked at and he had a little tendonitis setting in," Terry Collins said Wednesday. "So I went to him and talked about the possibility of moving back to Sunday and he felt that would work."

Young spent the bulk of the 2010 season on the disabled list with a strained right shoulder and made just four starts with the Padres. So the Mets are exercising extreme caution with their 6-10 righty.

"I want to be careful with him and I tried to explain that to him, that I'm trying to look at the big picture here," Collins said. "I know how important these games are, I told you guys, games in April are as important as games in September, but I look at the big picture of 30 starts a year and if I can get him a start in 29 of those games and we miss one, I'll take that. So we're just going to back him up."

Young wasn't all that concerned with his mini-setback.

"Because of the shoulder injury I had in the past, I couldn't even lift my shoulder," Young said. "It just was sore. I couldn't even get it to a pitching range. This, I can go through a movement, I can throw a baseball. It's nothing like the past."

Mets GM Sandy Alderson also downplayed Young's malady."