Welcome Jeff Francoeur

Newly acquired rightfielder Jeff Francoeur had a pretty nice first at-bat with his new team. His 2-rbi single in the first inning gave Johan Santana all the runs he needed as the Mets returned the favor from last night's shutout with a 4-0 shutout of their own against the Reds.

Santana (10-7) allowed five hits, struck out five and walked one, taking advantage of some rare run support (the Mets scored a total of seven big runs in his previous five starts). The Mets really wanted this game: KRod pitched the ninth in a non-save situation to close it out.

Francoeur went 2 for 4 in his Mets debut, and after one game, he's saying all the right things about wanting to play here in New York. The Mets traded for him yesterday, sending Ryan Church to Atlanta in a trade many consider a "TFTS" as in a "trade for trade sake", since on the surface it doesn't seem to address any problems the Mets and Atlanta are both facing. The Mets sent a 30-year old solid ballplayer and received a younger, worst hitter, better fielder with possibly a much higher upside if he can get his head on straight.

Here's what should concern Mets fans in the long run about this deal: The Braves rarely do anything wrong. And they rarely do anything that works out well for the Mets (see the Tom Glavine deal). We all have that friend we grew up with that always seems to do the wrong thing, always does stupid things, and always winds up with the short end of the stick. I get the feeling when the Braves (or any team for that matter) deal with Met management, the Mets are considered that stupid friend in the baseball GM world. Of course in real life, we feel sorry for that friend and tend to not take advantage of them. In business however, that's not the case. Somehow, the Mets are being fleeced in this deal - there's something out there we obviously don't know about. But the Braves do, and once again, they found a team to take Francoeur off their hands. Rumor has it they were going to out-right release this guy until they found a deal dumb enough to give them back a half-decent player.

Francoeur definitely has the potential to be a good player. However, it's going to take some serious coaching and hand-holding if he'll ever get back to the Francoeur of 2006 when he hit 29 homers and drove in 103 runs. (should we speculate how he put those numbers up in the first place?) But then again, how's the Mets coaching staff been working out for us so far? Exactly... My fingers are crossed in hope regardless.

Either way, sorry to see Ryan Church go. I'll certainly be one to applaud him when the Mets play the Braves after the All-Star break. I don't care what he says - he has every case to be upset about how this team treated him.

And lastly, sorry Jeff, but the "Frenchy" nickname thing has to go. This is New York... Vee don't "Frenchy" here!