I think that in the first half of the season the Mets basically did what they needed to do to remain competitive in the second half and possibly make a playoff run. After starting out 5-13, they spent most of April and May trying to fight back to .500, and have basically hovered at or around .500 ever since. They’re going into the break at 46-45.

They were of course plagued by injuries to guys like David Wright, Ike Davis, Johan Santana and Chris Young which probably should have marked the end of their season, and probably should have placed the Mets 15 games under .500 at this point, but thanks to some unexpectedly good play from guys like Dillon Gee, Justin Turner, and Daniel Murphy combined with the MVP numbers of Jose Reyes and quality pitching from Chris Capuano, Jon Niese and R.A. Dickey, the Mets were able to stay afloat (unlike the Marlins who went 5-23 during the month of June). Taking into account the low expectations coming into the season and the injuries I think that Met fans have to be pretty happy with the first half of the season. If they can get David Wright, Ike Davis and Johan Santana back healthy in the second half, the Mets could be a good candidate for a team to make a late season run for the wild card. If it looks like those guys aren’t going to come back and produce like we expect them to, then the Mets should work on trading at least Beltran and K-Rod and anyone else that might bring back some talent or help dump salary.

Last season the Mets were 8 games over .500 at the All Star break and things were looking great… they finished a pathetic 79-83, so obviously it could go south in the second half like last year, but to me this team has shown that they are not the same team as last year, they fight back late in games, they get hits with runners in scoring position and two outs and the pitching is much improved. In either case, I'm looking forward to the second half of the Mets season this year.