Despite recent comments to the contrary, it appears that Luis Castillo will be the starter at second base when he is activated from the disabled list tonight. Argenis Reyes has been getting the bulk of the playing time lately, though his 60 OPS+ leaves plenty to be desired (an additional 40 OPS+ or so). Castillo is nothing special, but his 88 OPS+ this season is considerably higher than Reyes. I don't think either is a spectacular fielder, though if Castillo's knees are up to the task his bat is certainly an improvement over Reyes and even Damion Easley at this point. Easley's reputation as a middle-infielder with pop hasn't really manifested itself this season; his .347 SLG is just a shade higher than Castillo's 2008 mark of .331 and is actually lower than Castillo's career SLG of .357.

Apparently chemistry, not getting solid starting pitching and scoring more runs than every NL team but the Cubs, is what has gotten the Mets to this point in the season (not to mention winning a ton of recent ballgames against terrible teams). This is just a brutal, horribly-conceived article that begs the Mets not to "tempt fate" by inserting Castillo into a lineup that has flourished without him. Conflating causality with coincidence has long been a favorite arrow in the tired sportswriting quiver, and this cage-liner by the Post's Larry Brooks is more of the same. I'm far from a Castillo supporter, but this is a little ridiculous.

Orlando Hernandez will undergo surgery to remove a bunion from his right foot. Hernandez, "39", likely won't pitch again this year or ever.

Did MLB screw the pooch by not sending its marquee ballplayers to compete for Olympic gold? Jayson Stark (nae) and Keith Law (yae) debate that question.

One lousy single from Brad Hawpe is all that separated the Mets from the franchise's first no-hitter. I don't really care so much that the Mets have never had one. I'll take the Mets' two World Series over however many no-nos the Astros have had since 1962. Don't get me wrong: it'd be nice to get one, and it'll be really exciting and I'll scream like a schoolgirl, but I don't really lament the fact that there's never been one. The Mets have had a zillion one-hitters, and with just a tiny bit of luck they'd probably have three or four no-hitters by now. But they don't, and they didn't get one on Saturday either.

Tangibly speaking, what they got was just as good: a win, pushing their current streak to eight straight victories and moving them to within a half-game of the Phillies for first place in the NL East. I don't want to say that this seemed unfathomable a week ago, because a week ago the we were in the middle of watching the series with the Phillies and imagining how great it would be to win the last three games and wind up 2.5 games out. But that's just what happened, and then five more wins after that. The Phillies are sputtering a bit and the Cardinals aren't playing so hot, so the Mets are actually just 1.5 games back of the Wild Card. All of this is heady talk when we're only 94 games into the season, but if it was fathomable a week ago it was certainly unfathomable a couple of weeks ago.

Whatever happens tomorrow, the Mets can finish the scheduled first half of the season no worse than a game and a half out of first, and could conceivably head into the All-Star break in first place (!). It's easy to get wrapped up in all of the winning, but you're never really as good as you look when you're on a hot streak and never quite as bad as when you're on a cold streak. The Mets are awesome right now: the starting pitching has been great, the bullpen has been great, the situational hitting has been great, the role players have been great. Is Fernando Tatis going to hit like this all year? Has Mike Pelfrey figured it all out? Is Aaron Heilman back to normal?

Hey, when everybody's playing great there isn't a lot to complain about. The gripers stay away and we're all happy. I'm not going to say the Mets are doing it all with smoke and mirrors, because they are legitimately playing terrific baseball. They've won some squeakers and maybe had some good luck along the way, but great hitting, pitching and unembarrassing fielding is a rock solid formula for moving up in the standings. Moises Alou is probably done for the year, but we really weren't counting on him to contribute much anyway. Ryan Church may be back sooner rather than later, as his recent dizzy spells have been attributed to migraines and not post-concussion issues. Hell, Orlando Hernandez and Angel Pagan are both making rehab starts with St. Lucie. Neither would have a tremendous impact on this team, but both could be useful parts down the stretch.

It could all fall apart tomorrow, but right now it's a lot of fun to watch the Mets play ball, and I guess that's all I really wanted to be able to say. Go out there and win tomorrow and we end the half on a high note.

Big winners: Pedro Martinez, +21.8% WPA, Carlos Muniz, +13.8% WPA
Big losers: Nick Evans, -6.7% WPA, Argenis Reyes, -4.9% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Iannetta double-play in 4th, +10.6% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: Evans strikeout with bases loaded in 4th, -6.7% WPA
Total pitcher WPA: +48.7%
Total batter WPA: +1.3%

---

Game Thread Roll Call

Nice job by Reg Dunlop; his effort in the game thread embiggens us all.

Name	# of Posts
Reg Dunlop	6
sireric	5
kendynamo	5
itsmetsforme	4
mmxii	4
gogomets	4
ZaBlanc	2
JohnPeterson	2
DoctorK16	2
LOUtheMETfan	1
JoshNY	1
kingcritical	1

El Duque is back... err... sort of

El Duque had a nice rehab start last night with the St. Lucie Mets, going five innings and allowing three hits, one walk and two runs while striking out six. St. Lucie is the Mets' High-A affiliate in the Florida State League (FSL) and is three big stepping stones from the big leagues. El Duque has clearly established himself as a big leaguer, but the poor chumps on the Vero Beach Devil Rays* are something considerably short of major league caliber. It may not be much, and Hernandez is supposed to dominate inferior competition, but it's still far more encouraging than had he been blown out by a bunch of kids with a paucity of professional experience.

* Yes, apparently the Vero Beach Devil Rays were allowed to keep their pagan name while their MLB counterpart caved to big religion** and cleansed themselves of their demonic leanings.

** May not have been actual reason. The organization ostensibly changed their name, logo and team colors to get a "fresh start". That's fine; there's no room in baseball for half-assed unbelief. I like my beer cold, my TV loud and my Satan worshipping baseball teams fa-laming.

Mike Hampton sucks at staying healthy

I'm beginning to think he just doesn't want to pitch anymore. Ham-bone was scratched before his scheduled start against the Pirates last night because of a strained left pec. I love Mike Hampton. He was mostly terrific for the Mets throughout the 2000 season and he was an absolute stud in the NLCS against the Cardinals. He was also kind enough to leave the Mets for the clear skies and superior schools of Colorado, leaving the Mets with a lousy sandwich pick they wasted on some bum. Hampton as done practically doodily-squat since then, turning in a decent year for the Braves in 2003 and otherwise pitching either horribly or infrequently or both. Anyway, thanks, Mike.

The end of an era?

According to The Big Lead, crumbum and hater of anything newfangled Murray Chass is a whisker away from finalizing a buyout with The Grey Lady. While this is certainly good news, part of me will miss the old coot. In celebration of Chass's long history of shaking his fist at things and chasing kids off of his lawn, take some time to read everything FJM has ever written about the guy.

Also at The Big Lead is a neat interview with Keith Law, just a bright, regular guy who wrote for Baseball Prospectus and then landed a gig in Toronto's front office. Definitely worth a read.

More of me, this time in audio form

The guys at Aceman & the Kwass were kind enough to ask me on their BlogTalkRadio show last night. The two hosts are big Mets fans and we had a good time chatting about all things orange-n-blue. I'm something of a live interview neophyte so I encourage you to give it a listen and let me know what you think. All comments and criticisms are appreciated. Gracias.

Ugh, now what? Orlando Hernandez and Mike Pelfrey both had their respective fifth-starter asses handed to them by the Cardinals on Sunday afternoon, further distorting what was already a slowly-developing potato sack race for the last spot in the rotation.

El Duque made his first start of the spring and, after throwing in the mid-seventies during a simulated game last week, was apparently rocking the mid-eighties this time around. Though pretty fast for a jalopy, 85 isn't enough mustard to get the ball by established major leaguers like opposing starting pitcher Todd Wellemeyer (1-for-2 on the day). All told, Hernandez allowed five runs on four hits in just three innings, striking out one and walking two.

Thankfully, I didn't see any of the game when it was on, as I was amidst a marathon five-hour Resident Evil 4 session on Wii. I went back and watched some of it on MLB.tv later on and was surprised to see El Duque look even worse than his pitching line would have you believe. Despite a sweet "Mirror, Mirror" goatee*, El Duque had very spotty control of most of his repertoire and featured a fastball that was noticeably devoid of life.

*Perhaps fitting, as this crappy El Duque must be from a diametrically opposing universe from the real (read: good) El Duque. We'll know for sure if this one stays healthy all year.

I'll concede that we should cut Hernandez some slack; having pitched using his customary stork-kick for so many years, many of them under the iron fist of Ramon Fidel Castro, there is unquestionably an adjustment period as he acclimates himself to pitching like everyone else. Radar gun flakiness notwithstanding, his fastball was reportedly ten clicks quicker on Sunday than it was last week, so given another three weeks it doesn't seem so unreasonable that he could ramp it up to the low-nineties by then. Given the assorted off-days in early April -- scheduled and otherwise -- the Mets won't need a true fifth starter until the middle of the month, so that gives El Duque a bit of leeway as he continues to get himself into playing shape.

El Duque wasn't alone in his brutal suckitude yesterday. Mike Pelfrey, who is also competing for that last rotation spot, was so much worse than El Duque yesterday as to make the Cuban's outing seem decent by comparison. Pelfrey allowed eight runs, all earned, on 13 hits in just 4.1 innings, a bit-spitting of biblical proportions. When Pelfrey struggles it is usually because he can't keep his fastball down, and this game was no exception, as his "sinker" would consistently drift up in the zone. I wrote about this last week, but Pelfrey will continue to fail at this level if he can't induce more groundballs. Sunday was more of the same, as Pelfrey recorded just four outs on the ground, just half of his flyball out total. That ratio needs to be flipped for Pelfrey to be successful.

I'm not the sort of fan/writer/basement dweller to throw around tired baseball platitudes like "step up his game", but Pelfrey has to be kicking himself for letting a golden opportunity to win a starting job with this team slip away. El Duque is a mess right now, and this was the perfect time for Pelfrey to "step up his game" and win the last starter spot out of spring training. Even a decent spring -- 3.50 ERA with so-so peripherals -- would have done it. But, much like intelligent design, that hasn't exactly happened. Pelfrey has an ERA of 8.31 in 17.1 innings and a lousy 6-to-7 strikeout-to-walk ratio. That's called "not getting the job done", whether you're from the new school or the old school.

To make matters worse, the Mets don't even have a passable Plan C. They've got Tony Armas in Triple-A, but he just arrived in the states last week after sorting out some visa issues, so he won't be ready for anything for at least a few weeks. Also, he's Tony Armas.

What else? Jorge Sosa, I guess. He was decent as a starter last year until his weak strikeout-to-walk rate came face-to-face with a little something we like to call "regression to the mean", and *bam*, he turned back into a pumpkin.

What the Mets could really use is a guy like Kyle Lohse, whom the Mets could have had for pennies on the dollar (i.e. $4.25 MM), but for whatever reason they didn't make an offer and Lohse signed with the Cardinals. It's possible that the Mets were interested but Lohse simply preferred a guaranteed spot in the rotation. Whatever the case, one year and $4.25 million seems like a pretty reasonably-priced insurance policy.

So now we wait and see. It may be that both Pelfrey and Hernandez stay behind -- Pelfrey in Triple-A and Hernandez in extended spring training -- until the Mets actually need to call on that fifth starter. Maybe one or both of them will figure things out by then and we'll have gotten all worked up over nothing. One prominent trait of championship teams is player depth*, and the Mets have very little in that department right now, particularly in the rotation. As it stands they have four guys for five spots. What happens if one (or two!) of their other four starters get hurt? Bad things, man. Bad things.

*Unconfirmed, but sounds reasonable.