JEEEZZ ...

Hey MetsFanClub.com readers! We would like to thank all of you out there that visit this blog, especially the long time readers who have been with us from the start. Even those who every once in a while send us feedback and even words of your own. Don't forget, if you are interested in contributing articles don't wait ... send them to us while what you want to say is still roaming around in your mind. Send your articles to info@MetsFanClub.com with "Article" in the subject heading, and we will do the rest. Ranting is allowed, however, no cussing and belligerent comments.

All articles sent are subject to editing. Send a photo to accompany article if you have one. Now to the matter at hand. Here is another quick word from long time MetsFanClub.com reader Taylor Tears. We decided to post her comment since it has reflected many of the emails that we have been receiving.

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Hey guys, Bobby Valentine is still available and the Mets better rehire him soon after last night's loss. Our idiot manager brought in our closer in the bottom of the 8th inning with the Mets losing 6 -4. In my many years of watching baseball, I have never ever seen a manager bringing in his closer when the team is losing.

As I was watching, I thought to myself (as I am dialing RC in LV and leaving a message on his VM), what happens if the Mets tie the game in the top of the ninth. Well, my prediction came true. Now, our brilliant manager doesn't have our closer to pitch the ninth with a tie game and of course we lose in the bottom of the ninth.

This manager doesn't understand the fundamentals of baseball - you bring in your closer with a tie game, but not losing by two in the bottom of the eighth. (Oh, as always, I think Jerry's excuse is that K-ROD needed some work) I guess Jerry was willing to just give up on the game and take a loss not believing that the Mets would score in the ninth.

Takman needs to go back to the bullpen and the Mets better trade for Cliff Lee who pitched a complete game in the Bronx last night. Imagine that, a starter pitching a complete game!!!! Manuel is an idiot and embarrassing. When asked what happened when Takman gave up the grand slam, Jerry's response after the game is he "didn't know what happened".

I guess Jerry didn't see the grand slam since he wasn't in the dugout????? Jeez!!!! TT

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Well Taylor ... many of your fellow MFC readers agree ...... and it was great seeing you again at the Mets last home stand. Keep those comments coming and see you again at a future game at Citi Field

Mets are Humiliated and Dominant By Identical 6-0 Scores

The Happy Recap: Mets take 2 of 3 from Twins and edge ever so close to First Place in the NL East.

Big bad Joe Mauer (with his tremendously annoying commercial for his video game) and the Minnesota Twins invaded Citi Field this weekend, only to see the Mets win a convincing opener 5-2, then get humiliated by someone named Carl Pavano by a 6-0 decision. But the Amazin's showed Ronnie Gardenhire (who characterized his years as a Mets infielder as "embarrassing") some real 6-0 embarrassment at the hands of Jonathan Niese who (dare I say it) is making an excellent case for being the Mets #2 starter behind Mike Pelfrey. (that's right, Pelfrey!)

THE GOOD: Mike Pelfrey, 10 game winner. I like the way that rolls out... Mike Pelfrey - 10 GAME WINNER! The Sheriff went 6 innings on Friday night and was the recipient of a David Wright dinger in Friday night's 5-2 opening Met win (and it didn't even seem that close - of course until KRod came into the game and almost blew it in the ninth, but earned the 3-run pity save instead). In addition to Wright, who also doubled, Jose Reyes went 2-for-3 and Jason Bay even drove in a run with an rbi double.

Despite being totally humiliated in Saturday's 6-0 loss (although Jeff Francoeur's still hitting accounting for 2 of the Mets 3 meager hits), the Mets and Jonathan Niese bounced back with a dominant performance of their own. Niese has been nothing short of impressive since his return from the DL and he had plenty of offensive support being him for his fifth win of the year. Jesus Feliciano continues to impress with 3 hits, as did Jeff Francoeur with his 3 hits, with David Wright recording another 3 hits in the game himself. Wright leads the league in RBI with 61 and with a few more games under his belt, he may accumulate more RBIs before the All-Star break than he had all of last year! In fact, other than an 0-for-5 day for Jose Reyes, every Mets position starter had at least one hit in the game, and the Mets bullpen was equally effective for basically the entire series (as usual).

The Mets bullpen really has been a pleasant surprise all year long. And now with a rotation of Pelfrey, Niese, Santana, Takman, and Dickey, it looks like everything's coming into place to save Jerry Manuel (a.k.a Forrest Gump) and Omar Minaya (a.k.a. Lutenit Dan) from being unceremoniously dumped by Jeffy boy (a.k.a. Paris Wilpon).

The Mets may have swept the series had it not been for another bad Johan Santana outing. What does that say when the elder Carl Pavano can pitch consecutive complete games but no Mets young starters can finish their own shutouts? We'll say it again, the pitch count stat is ridiculous and ruins more pitchers than just letting them throw can ever do.

THE BAD: Look, no one wants to admit it, but let's be honest here. Johan Santana is not the Johan of old, and may never be again. I don't want to hear the old "Santana's always been a second half pitcher". While that's true, he's always been a second half pitcher when his first half fastball topped 90 miles per hour, which it doesn't anymore and maybe never will again. Until further notice, Santana's the number 3 pitcher on this team after another clunker performance (against his old team no less). You want to tell me he settled down after allowing 4 first inning runs? Maybe... but a much more realistic scenario saw the Twins tank it for the rest of the game knowing an easy victory was assured with Carl Pavano dominating the Mets hitters. This is bad, folks, and I hope I'm wrong, but I see issues with the one-time dominating "best pitcher in baseball" that was Johan Santana.

THE UGLY: With the possible acquisition of Cliff Lee in play, many "experts" are indicating that if the Mets don't acquire the playoff proven superstar, they may resort to their backup plans of another serviceable starter. The names being mentioned are very ugly. Kevin Millwood? We already have Kevin Millwood on the team - his name is John Maine! Brett Myers? We already have Brett Myers on the team - his name is Oliver Perez. Jarrod Washburn? We already had Jarrod Washburn on the team in the form of Pedro Martinez. You get the idea - none of these has-beens will help. But Omar being the consummate General Manager already knows that, right?

Mets Sweep of Tigers Not Quite Wright

The Happy Recap: Mets win Series, 2-1

After 2 convincing victories against the Detroit Tigers, the Mets went for the sweep in last night's game, only to see David Wright come up short once again in a big spot with the bases loaded in the Mets bottom seventh, derailing a nice Mets comeback from a 6-1 deficit and sending the Citi loyal home wondering what would happen if the Mets played a real American League team.

THE GOOD: Jesus Feliciano had a career night in yesterday's 6-5 loss, going 3-for-5 and looking like a real MLB hitter (although we're not convinced yet). And Jose Reyes was a one-man demolition crew in Wednesday's 5-0 contest, just a double away from the cycle. RA Dickey raised his record to 6-0 in that game, going eight innings of just 4 hit ball which begs the question: why couldn't he have pitched the ninth for the shutout?!?

There is no questioning the Mets offense on Tuesday's rainy night, when the team belted out 16 hits for 14 runs in the biggest run explosion in the short history of Citi Field. Just look at the stat line for the first 5 hitters in that game: Jose Reyes: 3 hits, 3 runs, 1 rbi; Angel Pagan: 4 hits, 4 rbi, 3 runs; David Wright: 3 hits, 3 runs, 2 rbi; Ike Davis: 3 hits, 3 rbi, 1 run. The amazing part about the game was despite the run production, Jon Niese couldn't go 5 innings to qualify for the win. Jerry Manuel tried to let him get it, but the rain delay must have distracted him. Either way, you can only conclude one thing from the run outburst: Johan Santana was not pitching.

And out of the 6 outs recorded by newly promoted Bobby Parnell in the series, 5 have been by strikeout. Perhaps he has arrived?

THE BAD: It's hard to get on someone who's leading the NL in rbi, but it gets easier when one considers how often Mr. Wright comes up short when the "big hit" is needed. Interestingly enough, the same was said years ago about current Mets batting coach Howard Johnson, who once drove in over a hundred runs one year without one of them being considered a "game winner''. That being said, we'd all rather see a Mets team WITH David Wright than without, so we'll just have to settle for what Wright does bring to the team and leave the clutchness to someone else.

From the pitching side of things, Takman just didn't have it last night, allowing 6 runs and 8 hits in just 4 innings of work to suffer his 3rd loss (although if David Wright just hit the ball, Takman would have been taken off the hook!). But then again, even if the Mets did tie the game in the ninth, they were out of pitchers anyway and KRod would have had to pitch until whenever - bad bullpen management last night by Jerry, which luckily for him, didn't haunt him since the Mets went down meekly in the ninth 1-2-3 - and of course the MetsFanClub.com crew had to witness the game in person!

And as luck would have it with Carlos Beltran being rehabbed into coming back the team, the Mets best hitter, Angel Pagan, had to remove himself from Wednesday night's 5-0 victory due to injury and got the night off last night. We don't think it's anything serious - that is, until the Mets medical staff gets a hold of him, in which case Pagan may be out for the rest of the season.

By the way, who were those people at the game last night comparing Jason Bay to George Foster?.. and Bobby Bonilla?... and Mo Vaughn?...

THE UGLY: You never like attending a game when the Mets lose, but it's even uglier when you have to drive through a flash hailstorm to get to the game in the first place. 85 degrees and sunny one minute, then a torrential downpour with 60 mph winds and hailstones the size of golfballs crushing the car windshield the next! The 10 minute storm knocked down trees on the parkways, flash flooded the roads to the stadium, and caused traffic issues costing thousands of dollars - but it wasn't ugly enough to stop us all from going to the game.

Was it Father's Day or Groundhog Day?

The Recap: Mets lose 2 of 3 in the Yankee Stadium Subway Series - Just like they always do

It sure looked like the Mets were firing on all cylinders after shutting out the Yankees 4-0 on Friday night, but then came a lackluster 5-3 loss on Saturday followed by yesterday's dismal performance against 450-pound CC Subwaybathia, something we've seen many, many times before when the Mets face an ace in a rubber game.

THE GOOD: How about this for a line: 4 atbats, 2 hits, 2 runs, 2 homeruns, 3 rbi... and your team loses?!?! That was the stat line for Jose Reyes in Saturday's loss as he accounted for all the offense. Jose's hitting, he's fielding, he's running... it's official: Jose Reyes is BACK!

And who won the big game for the Mets this weekend? Not Big Pelf... Not Johan... Not "almost perfect" Niese... No, it was none other than Takman, who owns the Yankees this year to the tune of 12 shutout innings after tossing 6 innings in the Mets 4-0 win on Friday night (a game Jerry Manuel and the Mets bullpen tried desperately hard to give back to the Yankees in the bottom 9th).

And the best news of all: even after another Ground-hog day like humiliation at Yankee Stadium, the Mets are still the Wild Card leader in the National League

THE BAD: Even the most die-hard Met fan has to figure out there's something wrong with Johan Santana. Remember when he started the last big Sunday rubber game against the Yankees at Yankee Stadium (a 15-0 Yankees rout)? Or how about that time earlier this year when he started that big nationally televised Sunday night rubber game against the Phillies (a 15-6 Philly laugher)? Johan's striking out fewer and fewer batters and walking more and more. His fastball no longer reaches a consistent 90 mph. I hate to suggest this, but could it possibly be that Johan is no longer what's considered a "big game" pitcher? Granted, for whatever reason, the Mets get him zero run support (literally) But how many times are we going to watch our "ace" get manhandled by another team's top hurler? Mark Texiera's grand slam (also known as a Citi Field popup) in yesterday's game marked the 3rd granny that Johan's given up just this year alone. He's allowed a total of 3 in all his other years combined. C'mon folks... Santana's not our CC. We need Cliff Lee on this team for games like this.

When the Yankees decided they needed free agent help and broke the bank to buy the 2009 World Series, Mark Texiera came through with a monster year. The time has come to start expecting something from Jason Bay because his 4 homeruns and 27 rbis are not what we signed up for. First it was he was a slow starter. Then he was "streaky". Then he doesn't like hitting in humid weather... Enough! He seems to be a good guy, a hard worker, and a hustler, but the time has come to put up numbers - either that, or let's package him for a guy named Cliff Lee when Carlos Beltran comes back healthy.

THE UGLY: This one is almost too easy (and no, we're not going to talk about the ridiculous dimensions of Yankee Stadium.) Haven't we seen enough of Fernando Tatis? The guy hasn't had a hit in over a month and is 4-41 as a starter on the season. Even Gary Matthews Jr.'s laughing at him. Sure, the guy somehow hit 34 home runs in 1999 (during the steroid era, by the way - you can draw your own conclusions). Yet Jerry Manuel wants to "get him going" by starting him against CC. Impossible situation? Maybe... But we hold our position on this "righty-lefty" nonsense: a bad Chris Carter is better than a good Fernando Tatis. Period. End of story.

Unlike Lebron, Mets Happy to Stay in Cleveland

The Happy Recap: Mets Sweep Inept Tribe

On the heels of sweeping a ridiculously bad team in Baltimore, the Mets traveled to Cleveland to sweep an equally horrific team in a city where sports star after sports star can't wait to flee. But the Mets made it clear they'd play there all year if it meant a 162-0 record.

THE GOOD: In the first game of the series, Johan Santana won for only the first time in his last 4 starts as the Mets put up a 5-spot in the 5th inning to take control of the game, winning 7-6. Ike Davis hit another bomb and drove in 2 runs while David Wright was enjoying a nice 3-for-5, 3 rbi night. In fact, other than Jason Bay and Chris Carter, everyone in the lineup was hitting. KRod entered the game in the ninth with a 3-run lead, gave up 2 runs, but still got the save. (The save... now there's a stat that's jumped the shark.)

It didn't take long for the Mets to put up another 5-spot in Wednesday's 8-4 win, scoring 5 times in the third inning to help Jonathan Niese to another victory which upped his record to 4-2. This time, it was Angel Pagan who was the hitting star, going 3-for-5 with 3 rbi. With another 2 rbi from David Wright, he's now leading the NL in that department. (what a crazy season Wright is having).

Finally in the third game of the series, R.A. Dickey led the team for its 7th win in row, going six strong innings before the bullpen took over. Other than Jeff Francoeur, every starter got at least one hit, highlighted by Jose Reyes' 3-for-5 day. (Jose's quietly up to .270 with his batting average).

THE BAD: Then came the bad news that the Mets would have to leave Cleveland to play the Yankees at Yankee Stadium, where I'm sure their winning streak will be in serious jeopardy, unlike in Cleveland where winning is assured. It's like they say in New York: No matter how bad it gets, at least we don't live in Cleveland.

THE UGLY: Cleveland... Lebron, we feel your pain. See you in New York next year.

Fans Expect Sweep - Mets Oblige

The Happy Recap: Mets Sweep Lowly Birds!

Despite not having won a road series in almost a year, just about every Met fan had to expect them to sweep a series at Baltimore, home of the absolutely dreadful Orioles. In fact, one could go as far to say anything but a sweep would have been a complete failure for the road-challenged Amazin's. But the Mets came through, easily winning Friday's game 5-1 behind another knuckling performance from R.A. Dickey, narrowly winning Saturday's game 3-1 behind Takman's 7 strong innings, and coming through with a laugher in today's 11-4 rout with Big Pelf on the mound. It was the first time the Mets swept an opponent on the road since September 2008 when they played an actual big-league team.

THE GOOD: Starting pitching, starting pitching, starting pitching... What looked like a sore spot to start the season has really become the team's strength. Johan Santana... Mike Pelfrey... Jon Niese... R.A. Dickey... Hisonara Takahashi... Right now in baseball, is there anyone better? The stats say no. R.A. Dickey is 4-0. He went another 7 innings of 1 run ball. Takman's won 5 games already and just gave up 1 run in his outing. The Sheriff (Mike Pelfrey) was the recipient of an offensive outburst today (making up for his 9 strong innings of 1-run no-decision during his last outing) and picked up his much deserved 9th win of the year (his 5th straight win decision). The common denominator: Met pitchers are not walking batters and they're pitching ahead in the count.

Could the offense be coming around as well or was it "just the Orioles and their cozy stadium"? From today's game, David Wright went 3-for-5 with 2 homeruns and drove in 4 runs. He now has 25 rbi in his last 26 games. Jason Bay also homered and went 4-for-4 and scored 4 runs, breaking his 0-for-16 draught. Chris "The Animal" Carter hit a first inning 3-run dinger. And every Met in the starting line got at least 1 hit in the game. (Jose Reyes: 2 hits, Jesus Feliciano: 2 hits, Alex Cora: 3 hits)... the good goes on and on as the Mets totaled 18 hits in the game.

David Wright also had three hits and 2 rbi in Friday night's game, a game which included another Carter 3-run shot. (and another 2 hits from Jose). Then Jose went yard in the next game with a 2-for-3 performance. He's been on fire since MetsFanClub.com taught him how to hit!

THE BAD: On Saturday night with the game close, Jeff Francoeur hit a shot just over the rightfield fence for his 7th home run of the season. His reward for that? Mets manager Jerry Manuel benched him in today's game. Turns out it really didn't matter, but we all know how to put a streaky hitter in a slump, right? Sit him after a good game. Happens all the time. If Francoeur goes 1-for-12 in the next three games, let no one be surprised.

THE UGLY: From the looks and actions of the Camden Yards faithful, you could have sworn this series was being played in New York. Cameras panning the stadium showed Met jerseys after Met jerseys with an inordinate amount of cheers and applause coming at every run the Mets scored. Oriole fans: Granted your team is atrocious, but outright blatantly rooting for the opposition is just plain ugly.

No matter how bad the Mets are, at least Met fans don't root for the other team - they just boo loudly. We'd never stoop that low. Baltimore fans: if you don't like your team, just stay home instead...

One-derful!

The Happy Recap: Mets 3, Padres 0 (2nd game); Padres 4, Mets 2 (1st game)

The Mets went from 2 hits to 1 hit on the same day as Jon Niese was masterful in pitching the 23rd one-hitter in Mets history. But even more amazing was his stat line - no walks, no hit-by-pitch, while allowing just a third inning double to Chris Denorfia (this generation's version of Jimmy Qualls) which broke up his perfect game bid. As a result, Niese has just pitched the 3rd best game in the history of the New York Mets (Bobby Jones' 1-hitter against San Francisco in the playoffs in 2000 is definitely #1, followed by Tom Seaver's "imperfect game" in 1969 coming in 2nd).

THE GOOD: Pelfrey, Santana, Niese - not a bad starting three, huh? Now if the team can only get Cliff Lee! But tonight it was all about Jon Niese, who pitched his gem in just his 18th major league game pitched, the fewest by any Met to throw a complete game one-hitter since Aaron Heilman in 2005. (which was also the last time Heilman allowed just 1 hit in any appearance afterwards). Niese retired the last 21 batters he faced and struck out 6. He also walked twice in the game and scored a run. In a nutshell, he was absolutely dominating. The pie-in-the-face treatment was well deserved.

Jose Reyes had a 3-for-4 game and is now 6-for-12 since taking MetsFanClub.com's hitting advice in a previous post. (can we finally admit that HoJo is a great guy, a great Met, but a horrible batting coach yet? The answer is Yes, we can.) Chris Carter and Rod Barajas each had hits in the game as well.

And let's not forget Ike Davis' big walk-off 11th inning home run which gave the Mets a victory over the Padres on Tuesday night, overshadowing another tremendous performance by Mike "The Sheriff" Pelfrey, who went 9 innings just giving up a run in a no-decision in that game. Ike also had a 2-for-4 night in Niese's game, driving in a run along with Jeff Francoeur, who seems to be putting it all together these days.

All in all, there's a lot of good going on with this team, as the Mets remain the best team in baseball at home and are currently sitting in third place with a 32-28 record, tied with Philadelphia, and just 2.5 games off the pace of the division leading Braves. Mets-Braves... remember that rivalry? In fact, there's so much going well for the Mets, it doesn't even matter they fell victim to another triple play!

THE BAD: Did we mention there was a first game?, where San Diego's Mat Latos outpitched Johan Santana who's 18 inning scoreless streak was snapped but got tremendous run support for a change. (2 runs!). The loss stopped the Mets home winning streak at nine and the entire Mets offense amassed just 2 hits total in that game. (who knew that would be 1 more than the Padres would get in the very next game?). Only Henry Blanco's 2-run dinger kept the Mets inept offense from being shutout, and although Niese took the pressure off the offense, someone's eventually going to figure out the Mets need better than an entire team with no .300 hitters. Angel Pagan (Carlos Beltran's replacement) is leading the team with a .287 - and that's pretty bad.

THE UGLY: We don't know what's worst: the talentless Lady Gaga giving the finger to the Citi Field crowd, or the Mets upcoming schedule of ridiculous inter-league play. The Mets next six games are against woeful Baltimore, then hideous Cleveland. Then they play another contrived excitement series against the Yankees, followed by the tiresome Tigers before finishing their inter-league stretch against the Twins.

Look... I know the Yankee series always sell out, but the rest of inter-league play is a complete "who cares". When is someone going to stand up and tell everyone the emperor has no clothes on? Inter-league play was a nice novelty, but it's clearly worn out its welcome and should be stopped at this point. It cheapens the World Series. It cheapens the All-Star game (like that needed cheapening!), It cheapens the integrity of the schedule. But most importantly, fans DON'T WANT IT! Let's stop the insanity folks.

Sometimes You're the Bug, Sometimes You're the Windshield

The Happy Recap: Mets Sweep!

It wasn't too long ago that the Mets went to Florida with a bad manager and got swept by the Marlins in pathetic fashion. This time, they did the sweeping at home themselves with a bad manager instead, beating the Fish three times by scores of 4-3, 6-1, and 7-6.

THE GOOD: The Mets fell behind yesterday by a seemingly insurmountable 5 runs, but got right back into it with Jeff Francoeur's game tying 3 run homer, which took a relatively ineffective Takman off the hook, eventually allowing KRod to finish the game for his 12th save of the year. Angel Pagan had another nice day with 2 hits and 2 rbi and believe it or not, I actually heard on the broadcast the phrase "What are the Mets going to do when Carlos Beltran comes back?" David Wright continues to own Ricky Nolasco with a 3-for-5 day (without even striking out once!) and Rod Barajas had another nice 2-hit game.

Saturday's game saw Jon Niese coming back from the disabled list and pitching 7 strong innings of 1-run, 6 strikeout ball to gain his 2nd victory of the year. He was helped offensively by David Wright's monster of a home run ball (at Citi Field to boot!) and Ike Davis' 4-for-4 day. Angel Pagan, Jeff Francoeur and newcomer Ruben Tejada all contributing hits in the game as well. The rally-challenged Mets actually went 4-for-10 with runners in scoring position in this game and Jenrry Mejia and Fernando Nieve both did their jobs in the bullpen. More signs of good things to come.

As for Friday's game, can we say R.A. Dickey enough? He pitched into the seventh inning again, he's undefeated on the season so far with his third win, and he goes 2-for-3 with an rbi at the plate.

As a result of the 3-game series win, the Mets have the best home record in baseball.

THE BAD: Oliver Perez has been placed on the 15-day disabled list and Gary Matthews Jr. was DFA'ed. So where's the bad here? Let's start and end with the series Jose Reyes had. Jose was 1-for-10 and it wasn't even that good. Since hitting coach HoJo won't tell him, I guess it's up to MetsFanClub.com instead for advice: Jose, stop trying to hit the ball hard for a homerun. Each time you're up batting lefty, I haven't seen so many popups to the third baseman since the end days of Robin Ventura. Jose, you're the fastest guy in baseball... concentrate on hitting the ball on the ground! By doing that, you'll stop the uppercut and hit more line drives for hits. Period - simple as that. (and going up the middle probably won't hurt either)

THE UGLY: The Marlins are still selling tickets to a game that's already been played. Yes, that's right: since no one goes to Florida home games, very few people were actually present when Roy Halladay tossed his perfect game back on May 29th. Memorabilia seekers are clamoring for the now-famous ticket stubs to say "I was at that game" and many "investors" are paying more than face value. But hurry, this game is almost sold out, so act fast. Our prediction: Phillies 1, Marlins 0 - take it to the bank!

Pelfrey, Santana Breathe Different Sighs of KRod Relief

The Recap: Tuesday: Mets 4, Padres 2 | Yesterday: Mets 1, Padres 5

How did the Mets lose yesterday? KRod blew it for Johan. How did they win 2 night's ago? KRod almost blew it for Pelfrey. Both games had pitchers strong enough to go nine innings, yet both games had to see the disastrous "automatically go to the closer" mentality that's pervading Major League baseball.

THE GOOD: After the Padres explosion of runs against Takman et al, Mets starters Mike Pelfrey and Johan Santana both turned in stellar efforts - and you can't even say "Oh, it's just the Padres" as this team is still in first place in the NL West.

(by the way, this season had just about every expert picking the Padres to finish dead last in that division. Faced with those dire predictions, Padres manager Bud Black circled the troops and convinced them to play determined baseball to prove their critics wrong. Last year, when the Mets faced dire circumstances with injuries, Jerry Manuel went on record saying the Mets couldn't win unless they got a break from the other team or something. Yet people say Jerry "deserves" another year to see what he can do.)

But getting back to the good, Pelfrey won his fourth straight start, allowing just one run and four hits in eight innings to raise his record to 8-1. The Sheriff is 4-0 with a 1.26 ERA over that period. As mentioned previously, there's no reason Pelf can't go nine in that game. Pelf, you're the Sheriff.. DEMAND the ball next time!

Pelf got long-ball help from both David Wright and Ike Davis in the game, although Ike's dinger virtually assured him sitting on the bench in the next game. (We're joking, but maybe he should have since he went 0-5). Jason Bay had a nice day yesterday, going 3-for-4 in the loss and believe it or not, Jeff Francoeur seems to be heating up as well as we enter June.

Johan was Johan once again yesterday - great pitching performance with absolutely no run support. Johan's a strong guy... any reason he can't go nine? Johan, you're the best pitcher on the staff... DEMAND the ball next time so we don't have to watch KRod blow another game for you.

THE BAD: Even with his so-called "save" on Tuesday (he entered the game with a 4-1 lead and gets a save, jeez!), KRod makes every game interesting, although not in a good way. His stats indicate yesterday was his third "blown save" of the year, but we all know that number's deceiving since he's been roughed up in non-save situations this year as well. Luckily for him, it mostly goes unnoticed due to the incredible number of mindless mishaps the manager of this team makes. And luckily for him, major league baseball doesn't count any earned runs against his record as somehow his ERA is just 2.22 (how is that number so low!?)

Jose Reyes' hot streak? It's over. After tearing up the ball for a number of games, Jose went 1-for-12 in the San Diego series. And David Wright? Yes he did hit a home run, but please... stop striking out! Remember: nothing good can happen with a strikeout. If you at least hit the ball, the fielder may make an error, perhaps you beat out the grounder, and sometimes strange things can happen. But when you K, you get NOTHING. And it's not like the Mets are facing Ubaldo Jimenez quality pitchers here. Another 3 strikeouts yesterday means he's K'ed 4 times in 9 at-bats. Will there ever be another .400 hitter in baseball? I don't know, but Wright may be the first .400 strikeout-er.

THE UGLY: Like every player on the Mets, myself and Met fans across the country are getting extremely upset at Oliver Perez's tiresome situation. Since when do players dictate the terms on management's requests. Newsflash to Ollie: it's not about you. If the team (your employer) tells you to go to AAA, you go! I'd love to see the Mets organization flex its muscles and tell this loser: we're paying you and we're telling you to go to the minors and work it out PERIOD - you don't want to go, then we terminate your contract and you get paid ZERO! So sue us... Watch how fast he reports to the AAA club then.