One Step Back: Padres 4, Mets 2

And we're back to the wretched, intolerable Mets games of yestermonth. Sloppy defense, anemic offense, practically nothing to get excited about. The pitching wasn't terrible. Pedro Martinez got off to a rough start but mostly settled down and managed to pitch into the seventh inning. Only a David Wright error allowed the Padres' third run to score, and an Eddie "Rusty" Kunz homerun allowed -- his first since 2005 when he was playing with Oregon State -- put the game woefully out of reach at 4-2.

The Mets' hitters are back in that mode of, uhh, that thing where you don't do a lot of run-scoring. They made another mediocre starter look like the second coming of Steve Nebraska and fell back to three games behind the Phillies. There's still hope: three games is far from insurmountable, they've got plenty of games left against the Phillies and Marlins, blah blah blah. Seriously, who can stand this anymore? They'll suck me back in with an 8-2 win on Thursday, and then back in the crapper with a 3-1 loss on Friday. Eff this ess.

Big winners: David Wright, +20.5% WPA, Dan Murphy, +17.2% WPA
Big losers: Carlos Beltran, -27.3% WPA, Carlos Delgado, -21.8% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Murphy RBI single, +10.4% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: Giles single/Wright error, -18.9% WPA
Total pitcher WPA: -6.3%
Total batter WPA: -43.7%

Game Thread Roll Call

Nice job by Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright; his effort in the game thread embiggens us all.