It's pretty amazing that we can go from "We're screwed!" to "Suck it, Philly!" in less than two days. Following the Tuesday night debacle there were some alarmist Mets fans who were ready to hit the panic button. Now the Mets are 4-4 and find themselves a game up on the Phillies and a game-and-a-half behind the soon-to-be-fourth-place-or-maybe-even-fifth-place Marlins. Even though the Phillies practically handed the Mets the win on Wednesday and the bats were mostly anemic on Thursday, I still feel 1000% better than I did two days ago. With apologies to Dinah Washington...

What a difference two days make
Forty-eight little hours
Though there's still not much power
Mmmm... things do seem right again

Through Tuesday was lame, boys
Now nothing's the same, boys
The Mets have some game, boys
Now not so much pain

John Maine allowed only one run in six innings, but he didn't really pitch very well. He was behind in the count all night, walked five batters and recorded just one strikeout. I suppose he could be commended for toughing this one out despite not having his best stuff, but even though the result was good I can't say I was terribly encouraged by the ride.

On the bright side, the bullpen was astounding, with the exception of Aaron Heilman who stunk. Again. The rest of the 'pen combined to throw five scoreless innings, allowing just two hits (though three walks) and striking out six. Even Shea Stadium pariah Scott Schoeneweis received a lukewarm round of applause after inducing a groundball double-play of Chase Utley to end a Philly thread in the 11th inning. Show was booed robustly on Tuesday night so it was nice to see him redeem himself last night. He's a fellow member of the tribe and we have to support our own.

David Wright managed to coax two walks out of Phillies pitching, but he otherwise looked inept at the plate against off-speed pitches of any variety. I guess we should be happy that he is OPS-ing .845 despite hitting just .233. Behind Wright, Carlos Beltran reached base two more times but struck out in big situations in the 8th and 10th innings. Ahead of Wright, Angel Pagan picked up three more hits -- including the game-winner -- and is hitting .370/.457/.519. Carlos Delgado had an off night, collecting just a lone walk in five plate appearances.

Has anyone else noticed the utter dearth of homerun power on this team so far? If you don't already know the answer, how many homeruns would you say the Mets have hit this season? If you've watched all of the games to this point, just think back and try to remember when a Met has homered. Ryan Church hit one against the Marlins; that's one. David Wright also hit one against the Marlins; that's two. Delgado hit one in the home opener; that's three. Umm... Oh, Carlos Beltran hit one in Florida, but the umps took it away; that's still three. Err... Yea, that's it folks. Through eight games the Mets have mashed a whopping three homeruns. Twenty-one players have at least three homeruns this season; so do the Mets. The D'Backs' Mark Reynolds has five homeruns all by himself! Frank Thomas is hitting .182 and *he* has three homeruns. I know that steroids are gauche and all, but hit the weight room, fellas, eh?

The April scoreboard for the Swag Contest has been updated, and anonymous has an eleven point edge through the first eight games. The scoreboard is updated shortly after every game.

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The list of things that went wrong for the Mets on Saturday against the Braves is lengthy and wide-ranging:

The hitting wasn't very clutch

Clutch hitters may not actually exist, but clutch hitting happens every day. Or, at least opportunities to do so happen every day. David Wright, so dominant against the Marlins earlier in the week, took an 0-for-4 and personally left four runners on base. Luis Castillo went 0-for-5 and likewise left four ducks on the pond in his wake. Though their official LOB tally was just six, the Mets collectively left 18 runners on base following outs (the former only counts runners left on base at the end of an inning; the latter counts baserunners multiple times if they are left on by multiple batters in an inning). The Mets are still hitting -- they picked up another ten-spot on Saturday -- but they just couldn't get the big hit when they needed it, and unfortunately they left the fate of this game in the hands of those tasked with preventing runs from scoring. Which brings us to:

The pitching stunk up the joint something fierce

The crummy pitching began with John Maine, who made his first start in a week and looked a bit rusty in doing so. The FOX radar gun had him throwing 96-97 early on, which is a solid 2-3 ticks faster than I had ever seen him clocked. It's possible that their gun was a tad on the high side, but we often hear pitching coaches and managers talk about their pitchers being "too strong" after a long respite and that may have been Maine's biggest problem. He threw 96 pitches over just four innings, striking out five and walking three. He also allowed eight hits, so he was probably leaving the ball up a bit and also found his way to the bad side of the BABIP fairy, a locale that has been historically unfamiliar territory for Maine.

Joe Smith relieved Maine and retired four of the five batters he faced, allowing a lone single to erstwhile and should-be Met Ruben Gotay. Gotay advanced to second on a Yunel Escobar sacrifice bunt, at which point Smith gave way to Scott Schoeneweis and "keeping the game close" gave way to "hemorrhaging runs like shit from a donkey". Attempting to disprove the myth that only righties can knock him around, Schoeneweis allowed a single to lefty-hitting Mark Kotsay that scored Gotay from second. Carlos Delgado made a nice play on the throw home by Ryan Church, whirling to throw out Kotsay trying to stretch the hit into a double.

Jorge Sosa relieved Schoeneweis to begin the seventh inning and things quickly got out of hand. The first five batters went strikeout, double, single, strikeout, walk, the result of which left the bases loaded with two outs and no runs in (yet!). Bobby Cox sent the left-handed Kelly Johnson up to pinch-hit for Peter Moylan and Willie Randolph countered by doing absolutely nothing. For his career, lefties have hit .297/.385/.505 against Sosa. To get an idea of what that's like, try to imagine Sosa pitching a full game in which every lefty he faced was Willie McCovey (career .270/.374/.515 hitter). Of course Johnson hit a grand slam, and of course the Mets scored two runs in the next inning that would have otherwise tied the game. Should we blame Sosa? It's not his fault. I don't blame a spoon for not being able to cut my steak; it's a utensil ill fit for the job, just like Sosa facing lefties. So who is to blame? Let me see here.

Willie Randolph let another one get away

I don't have nearly as much vitriol for Randolph as some, but he clearly screwed the pooch on Saturday. The game was still within reach when he made the non-decision to leave Sosa in to face Johnson even though he had a well-rested arm in his bullpen who is absolute murder on lefties. Pedro Feliciano -- he of one lone mop-up inning of relief so far this year -- has held lefties to an anemic .216/.294/.281 composite batting line for his career. The Mets have another off-day on Monday, so even if Feliciano had to pitch on Saturday and Sunday he would have been assured of some rest before the Mets head to Shea to take on the Phillies on Tuesday. That never happened, Johnson launched the four-run bomb to right, and Randolph added another star to his "Bungler of All Things Bullpen" tote board.

Add up all of the suckitude and the Mets drop another game at the Ted. Johan Santana and John Smoltz toe the rubber tomorrow, and we can only hope for better things from the Mets in all areas.