After being swept by the Florida Marlins at home for the first time since 2004, the Mets look to at least look competent this weekend as they take on the Philadelphia Phillies for the final four times this season. Last night's 13-4 loss (which I had the unenviable privilege to go to) was a microcosm of the entire season- walks, fielding blunders, poor base running, you name it it was there. While the Mets fade into oblivion, the Phillies look to protect and expand upon their 5 game lead in NL East..in which quite honestly they should be able to do with ease. Oh, and one more thing. If the Phillies win at least three out of four, they can officially eliminate the Mets from playoff contention. The Mets' tragic number stands at 6.


Pitching match-ups for the series:

Tonight: Nelson Figueroa (2-4 4.74 ERA) vs. Cole Hamels (8-9 4.32 ERA)
Figueroa's last start (L 3-5 vs. CHC): 6IP, 4ER, 7H, 2BB, 8K
Career vs. PHI: 0-0 2.84 ERA, 1.42 WHIP, .240 BAA in 4 relief appearances
Road this season: 1-1 1.32 ERA, 1.17 WHIP, .231 BAA in 3 appearances (2 starts)
Hamels' last start (L 3-4 @ HOU): 6IP, 4ER, 8H, 2BB, 6K
Career vs. NYM: 1-4 4.50 ERA, 1.63 WHIP, .318 BAA in 8 appearances (all starts)
Home this season: 5-3 3.67 ERA, 1.07 WHIP, .235 BAA in 13 appearances (all starts)

Saturday: Mike Pelfrey (10-10 4.83 ERA) vs. Jamie Moyer (12-9 4.98 ERA)
Pelfrey's last start (W 4-2 vs. CHC): 8IP, ER, 5H, BB, 5K
Career vs. PHI: 4-2 3.88 ERA, 1.45 WHIP, .273 BAA in 8 appearances (all starts)
Road this season: 4-7 6.55 ERA, 1.77 WHIP, .307 BAA in 12 appearances (all starts)
Moyer's last start (ND 3-4 @ HOU): 6IP, 2ER, 3H, BB, 4K
Career vs. NYM: 8-5 3.55 ERA, 1.25 WHIP, .261 BAA in 21 appearances (all starts)
Home this season: 6-7 6.07 ERA, 1.53 WHIP, .303 BAA in 14 appearances (12 starts)

Sunday's 1pm Game: John Maine (5-4 4.52 ERA) vs. Pedro Martinez (4-0 3.64 ERA)
Maine's last start (L 1-7 @ WAS): 4IP, 7ER, 6H, 2BB, K
Career vs. PHI: 5-0 2.54 ERA, 1.11 WHIP, .211 BAA in 9 appearances (all starts)
Road this season: 1-3 6.34 ERA, 1.65 WHIP, .265 BAA in 6 appearances (all starts)
Martinez' last start (W 5-3 @ WAS): 6.2IP, 3ER, 7H, BB, 4K
Career vs. NYM: 11-3 2.37 ERA, 1.03 WHIP, .206 BAA in 19 appearances (14 starts)
Home this season: 1-0 1.50 ERA, 0.75 WHIP, .186 BAA in 3 appearances (all starts)

Sunday's 805pm Game: Tim Redding (2-5 5.78 ERA) vs. Cliff Lee (13-11 3.13 ERA)
Redding's last start (L 2-4 vs. FLA): 5IP, 4ER, 5H, 4BB, 4K
Career vs. PHI: 5-3 3.13 ERA, 1.12 WHIP, .207 BAA in 13 appearances (all starts)
Road this season: 1-2 5.13 ERA, 1.69 WHIP, .299 BAA in 12 appearances (7 starts)
Lee's last start (W 6-5 @ WAS): 7IP, 5R (4ER), 10H, 0BB, 4K
Career vs. NYM: 1-0 0.00 ERA, 0.86 WHIP, .240 BAA in 1 appearance (start)
Home this season (CLE & PHI): 5-7 3.00 ERA, 1.27 WHIP, .276 BAA in 14 appearances (all starts)

Will the Mets play spoiler or be a welcome mat once again? How will John Maine do in his first start since coming off the DL? When Tobi Stoner spells him, how will he fare? Will Pedro Martinez continue to torment the Mets? Can Angel Pagan learn the fundamentals of base running? Will the Mets hit into another triple play? Stay tuned.
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The Mets were very busy today.

They signed the previously DFA'd Argenis Reyes to a minor league deal.

Then they signed free agent outfielder Cory Sullivan to a one year $600,000 deal.

Lastly, they avoided arbitration with newly acquired OF Jeremy Reed, OF Angel Pagan and OF Ryan Church by signing them all to one year deals worth $925,000, $575,000 and $2.8 million respectively. Read More...

In case you missed today's game, because I almost did due to the 3pm start, you missed John Maine quietly going about his business again. Is this guy serious right now? The fact that he hasn't managed to give up more than 2 ER in any of his starts is pretty incredible. I love when analysts mention how he has labored in some of his starts. If that's laboring, I'd hate to hear bullpen analysis.

Another week, another wrap up, and another round of question marks regarding the 2008 New York Mets. After getting our hopes up with an impressive series against the Phillies, the Mets took another giant step backwards with a horrendous series against the Milwaukee Brewers.

The Mets opened up the last season at Shea Stadium in true New York Mets fashion on Tuesday, as the bullpen blew a great game for Oliver Perez. Perez threw another 5 2/3 scoreless innings for the home team, but in the end it was the classic Mets bullpen giving us another classic result. Scott Schoeneweis was the main culprit along with support from his always reliable cast of Jorge Sosa (who I guess doesn't need days off anymore), and Aaron Heilman. The Mets bounced back nicely on Wednesday though, as Mike Pelfrey helped stop a three game skid in pitching five strong innings. Pelfrey and stopper...hmmmmm. Just when things were looking good Heilman (who not surprisingly is my Dave Mlicki Award Winner of the week), nearly blows a great outing by John Maine. Well he blew Maine's chances at a win, but at the same time he was bailed out by this weeks Ed Kranepool Award winner, Angel Pagan. I love this kid. He is starting to reach levels that only the Teenage Hitting Machine has seen when it comes to young New York Mets outfielders. In case any of you Mets fans have been living under a rock this past week, Pagan is now batting .385 with 10 RBI for the season. Moises who???? Mr. Pagan delivered a game winning RBI on Thursday giving us the first series of the year against the hated Phillies. Things were just starting to look somewhat good...

And then Milwaukee rolled into town on Friday night. At first this series was shaping up to look great. The Mets as team, for the first time since the Marlins series looked great collectively. Heilman was awesome out of the pen, as were his teammates Joe Smith and Billy Wagner (and his awesome wad of dip). Nelson Figueroa gave us a ton of hope in his assignment to replace Pedro Martinez. Figueroa gave up a mere two hits and struck out six, while giving up two earned in six innings of work as the Mets looked pretty impressive at Shea on a rainy Friday night. Then Saturday hit and the wheels started to fall off. Someone needs to take David Wright onto the field before games and just have him work on throwing the ball to first. I applaud Carlos Delgado for mastering the sweep tag manauever that has become all too common in Mets games this season. The good news about Wright is that he is hitting the ball well. The bad news is, no one seems to be able to hit the ball well in clutch situations; including D-Dubs. For instance, Sunday's game. The Mets tallied 14 hits and seven runs in this game...and lost. They also grounded into five consecutive inning ending double plays. The bullpen also had a rough go at it, capping off a shaky two days of pitching that included Johan Santana giving up three home runs in his losing effort on Saturday.

Speaking of Santana. Get off his back. Does anyone really think he is going to go 65-0. Let him get his bad starts out of the way now, because they are going to happen every now and again. Point is the man gives us a chance to win day in and day out. End of story.

So my weekly progress report on the Metropolitans is an overall C+. The only reason we get the plus is because of the fact that we beat the Phillies in a series and ended that horrific losing streak against them. The bullpen was horrible this week minus Friday nights game. The starting pitching was awesome against Philadelphia, and then not so good against Milwaukee. The good thing about that is the guys who pitched poorly (Santana and Perez's Sunday start) are the guys who we most expect to bounce back in a big way in their next starts. Pelfrey and Figueroa having great outings was an awesome sign this week. The line up is still hit or miss. There are days when all hits seems to go our way, and then there are days when I feel we couldn't hit the broad side of a barn with a beach ball. I don't know if it's the HGH wearing off, but Delgado needs to wake up. Wright and Carlos Beltran are putting up soid numbers, but they need to hit more in the clutch; especially with Jose Reyes and Luis Castillo both nursing injuries. I don't know what Ryan Church and Pagan have been eating, but they both need to keep at it. They are both picking up a lot of slack that is being missed by Reyes and Delgado right now.

Looking ahead to this week, the Mets have what should be a gimme series against the Washington Nationals to close out their homestand. The Nationals win over the Atlanta Braves on Sunday marked their first win in nine games. This is the type of series where the Mets need to work out any last kinks, because a series with the Phillies at Citizens Bank Park awaits this weekend (which I look forward to seeing a lot Mets fans there, I will be looking to go to the game on Saturday if I don't acquire tickets to Game Five of the Devils/Rangers series).

All games of the Washington series will be broadcast on SNY and start at 7:10 PM. For the Phillies series, Friday's game will be on CW11 and will start at 7:05 PM. Saturday's game will air on FOX and start at 3:55 PM. Sunday's game is the ESPN Game of the Week, and will start 8:05 PM. For those of you in the Washington area you can catch the games on MASN, and for those of you in the Philly market (this guy) Friday's game can be viewed on CSN.

Looking forward to another week of Mets baseball...and playoff hockey LET'S GO DEVILS!!!!!
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Some nights it's time to drop the funny business.  Thank god the Mets won that game tonight. For the sake of Carlos Beltran & Aaron Heilman...it's a good damn thing they won that game.

The Mets have re-acquired former minor league prospect Angel Pagan from the Cubs in exchange for minor leaguers Corey Coles and Ryan Meyers. Neither Coles nor Meyers was highly touted by the organization.

You may remember Pagan was a young star for the inaugural 2001 Brooklyn Cyclones who were named co-champions of the NY-Penn league after the championship series was cut short following the September 11th terrorist attacks.

Pagan was sold by the Mets to the Cubs in January 2006. Pagan hit .255 in 148 games with the Cubs between 2006 and 2007.

This is an interesting acquisition for the Mets, Pagan is another young speedy outfielder, who could conceivably take the spot of Carlos Gomez or Endy Chavez on the roster if one of them is traded in a deal for a pitcher.
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