The State of the Mets

Ok, lets take a second to breathe, goose-frah-bah, goose-frah-bah. Now that we are in our happy place, let me reel off a few notes about the Mets right now:

-The Mets are in 1st place by 1 and a 1/2 games to the Atlanta Braves and Philadelphia Phillies
-Playing the Yankees and Tigers, was playing the top two offenses in the league. They are 1-2 in runs, hits, SLG% and OPS and boast top hitters like Rodriguez, Jeter,Ordonez and Sheffield.
-The Mets pitching staff is one of the top 5 in the league boasting the 4th lowest ERA in the National League as well as giving up the fewest hits of any staff in the MLB
-The Mets lead the NL in batting average with a .271 team BA
-The Mets have grounded into the second fewest double plays in the Major leagues
-The Mets are on pace to lead the league in Stolen Bases for another season and are 21 SB ahead of the LAA who are #2 in baseball
-The Mets have the third lowest fielding percentage in the league and have committed the second fewest errors in all of baseball

With all of that considered, being worried about this team in its current state is just being worriesome. Have the mets been in this position before with Willie as the skipper? No. Have the Mets shown any signs of life in the past two weeks? No. Do the Mets have more talent than any other team in the National League? Yes. You can talk to me about the Padres pitching with Young, Peavy and Maddux and the kid Germano, but their bats are anemic other then A-Gon, the Dodgers have a great talent pool of young players but they have no hitter in that lineup who will hit 25 homeruns and no hitter is above a .288 BA. The Brewers are keeping the pace, but they are young and inexperienced and I am not sold on that starting rotation after Ben Sheets. With their hot prospect Yovani Gollardo going tonight we may have to reassess that tomorrow.

The fact remains the Mets are still the class of the National league and they were the class of it last year. They have last year's excruciating playoff loss in the back of their minds and I am fine with Glavine, Hernandez, Perez and Maine in my playoff rotation. I am even more ok with the fact that Pedro could replace John Maine in the post-season staff.

Carlos Beltran is the one player who is just plain frustrating me. I truly believe he is playing a game with the media and fans. he does not come out and blame his awful June on his "quad injury" but he makes it seem like he wants us to pity him because he cannot do anything about it. Fact is his quad looked just fine when he ran down not one but two fly balls yesterday in center that any center fielder (not named Hunter, Matthews or Crisp would have dropped or not been able to snag. He looks fine in the field and at the plate, his quad has nothing to do with reading a pitch or getting bat on the ball. Fine if its sore do not steal bases but come on this is ridiculous

The one thing that does not worry me, but disappoints me, is the lackluster play of Carlos Delgado. He is lost at the plate, and will not come out of this. I am not expecting more then 25 homeruns 80 rbi's and a .250 BA for him. Anything more is a major plus which is sad considering he would have been the NLCS MVP last October.

Tom Glavine is going to be ok, look at my post yesterday to see why, but when you face DET and NYY you cannot expect the most amazing results. Those teams can hit no other way around it.

I am also not that worried about the bullpen. Smith and Feliciano look fine and Heilman will come around. Schoenweis has struggled mightily, but lefty hitters are only batting .220 against him making him our designated lefty specialist and Mota and Sele will eat innings.

Relax Met fans we will turn this around.