If this was supposed to be a statement series for the Mets, then I guess the Mets are saying, "We're good enough to hang with the best pitchers on the best team in the league. And our bullpen is kinda iffy." We'll talk about the former first because I like to get the good news out of the way before before turning my attention to the morosity.

By almost any measure, the Diamondbacks are the best team in the National League right now. They have the best run differential by far, a terrific starting rotation (that's about to add Max Scherzer to its ranks tomorrow), an incredible core of young position players, and a surprisingly effective bullpen. Their skipper won manager of the year last season, they have a progressive young general manager, and they have all of the pieces in place to remain a National League stalwart for the foreseeable future. The Mets had plenty of question marks heading into this series, but they came in and played two-and-a-half very good games and managed to come away with a series victory.

They roughed up a hobbled Micah Owings on Friday and had Johan Santana going for them against Dan Haren on Sunday, winning the bookends against two pretty tough pitchers. They even managed to keep themselves in the game against Brandon Webb on Saturday before Duaner Sanchez's meltdown put things out of reach. Ironically, the worst thing to happen to the Mets this weekend may have been the injury to Orlando Hudson, whose absence opened the door for Augie Ojeda's six-RBI game in Arizon's only win. Mind you, this is the same Augie Ojeda who had 45 RBIs in his 582 career plate appearances prior to Saturday.

As for the bullpen, despite a team reliever ERA of 3.56 (5th in the NL), the relief corps is not without its share of problems. Billy Wagner has been ridiculously good, and has turned out to be a remarkable free agent signing despite his mysterious and quite possibly dubious injury problems at the end of last season. Other than Wagner, there's very little dependability in the 'pen. Their overall performance has been pretty good, and Pedro Feliciano has been good in astonishingly limited action, but there's nobody else out there that I have tremendous confidence in right now.

Aaron Heilman has a very strong track record, but he looked feeble and peckish through the first five weeks of the season. Scott Schoeneweis has been surprisingly effective, but hasn't even thrown ten innings this season. Joe Smith has been pretty good, too, but has lately been prone to spurts of dominance punctuated by fits of crappiness. Sanchez had been good until his barf-worthy outing this weekend, and Jorge Sosa, team leader in wins with four, is, well, Jorge Sosa.

I guess morose was a little heavy-handed. There are definitely some nice pieces there to complement Wagner, but the lynchpin has to be Heilman. I still don't know what to expect out of Sanchez in the long-term; aside from his recent outing he has shown solid control and very nice break on his off-speed pitches. His fastball has been in the high-eighties for the most part, but with a little conditioning he should be able to keep it in the low-nineties with good consistency. I still feel like he's as likely to pitch a 1-2-3 inning as have his arm fall off entirely. Heilman's fall from grace has been disturbing, and his lack of control and proclivity for coughing up homeruns of late have made him impossible to turn to in high-leverage situations. If he is maskig some injury then he needs to fess up so he can take some time off and come back to help the team. If he's just got a case of the yips, well, get over it son; this team needs you.

And... yay! Win Probability Added graphs are back!

Mr. Met: Johan Santana, +27.8%
Mr. Regret: Luis Castillo, -11.0%
(Non-)Clutchiest Plate Appearance: Carlos Delgado fielder's choice/error, +19.4%
(Non-)Clutchiest Pitch: Mark Reynolds RBI single off of Joe Smith, -22.2%
WPA by Offense: +19.9%
WPA by Pitchers: +12.3%
WPA by Opponent: +17.8%

The site was down for a loooong time last night, and we actually missed our first game thread in the three-plus years of Amazin' Avenue. While that fact saddens me for a number of reasons, it also made me think twice about having a game thread for tonight's game since the Mets are officially 1-for-1 when AA goes threadless. The reason for the downtime was a hardware failure following a recent server upgrade for all of the SBN hosted sites. Our incredible tech team determined the cause fairly quickly, but it took quite a bit of time to make sure there were no other points of failure.

Unlike our servers, the Mets had comparatively few points of failure last night, as they put together a very strong effort from start to finish. Yes, it was against the Nationals, again, but the immediate need was to generate some good feelings in the clubhouse and amongst an increasingly frustrated fanbase, and a nice 7-2 victory will quell the torrent of complaints for one day at least.

Carlos Delgado was appropriately dropped in the order from fifth to sixth, with Ryan Church and his hot bat sliding into the five-hole. Church went 2-for-5 with a couple of ribs, but the change did little for Delgado, who went 1-for-5 with an RBI-groundout, dropping his average to .208. His .589 OPS is just 43 points higher than his career slugging percentage of .546.. He is an offensive and defensive sinkhole at a position that expects considerable offense and passable defense. I don't verily believe that he is a sub-.600 OPS hitter at this point in his career, but his days of .900 OPSes, and possibly even .850 OPSes are squarely in the rearview.

Ironically, the only regulars who didn't collect at least one hit last night were franchise cornerstones Wright and Reyes (though Wright did draw a walk). Even The Dominican Out Machine™ Luis Castillo collected a couple of singles (and might've had a third if his sharp liner in the seventh didn't stay up long enough for Milledge to run it down). For all of Castillo's faults -- and there have been many to this point -- he has drawn enough walks to give him a respectable .343 on-base percentage despite his .246 batting average. He is slugging an anemic .262, but has swiped five bases in as many attempts, so that's something I guess.

Johan Santana was terrific, allowing just two runs on a two-out double by Tim Redding in the fourth and otherwise shutting down a nothing-special Washington offense. He wasn't unusually dominant -- just four strikeouts in seven innings -- but he only walked one batter and went 2-for-2 at the plate with two doubles and a walk. Duaner Sanchez continues to look sharp, pitching another perfect inning, and Billy Wagner closed things out in the ninth, walking a batter but also picking up a couple of whiffs.

If finishing in second place is like kissing your sister, I'll let your deviant minds mad-lib the analogy for losing to the Braves. Again. The Mets wasted a good performance by Johan Santana in dropping a 3-1 hair-puller in Atlanta on Sunday. What'd we learn?

Johan Santana is an ace

One game doesn't really tell us that, but in just two starts this season it's easy to see why Santana is one of the best pitchers in the game. On Opening Day he was mostly dominant in shutting down the Marlins, and on Sunday he managed to shut down the Braves without anything resembling his best stuff. The Braves managed seven hits against him -- many of them solid base-knocks -- but Santana didn't hurt himself by allowing unnecessary walks, he made his three strikeouts count, and he mostly held a very good lineup in check despite featuring a fastball that was a few ticks short of top speed and a slider that didn't do much of anything.

The table-setters didn't set shit

Jose Reyes and Luis Castillo combined to go 0-for-8, totalling one fewer hit and two fewer total bases than Johan Santana, whose primary job it is to pitch. Neither Reyes nor Castillo is swinging the bat well in the early going this season, and it has still only been five games so I'm not standing on the ledge here or anything, but both have to start turning in better at-bats all around. Castillo has been taking some pitches at least, even if the results aren't there, whereas Reyes seems to have reverted to last September or pre-2006 form where he would basically swing at anything. We all want to forget about September and I'm sure Reyes is no different, but whatever he's doing right now isn't working. He was at his best last year when he was taking pitches, getting the count in his favor, working walks. He isn't doing any of that.

Credit where due, even when it backfires

I am quick to point the finger at Willie Randolph when he bungles some seemingly-obvious in-game strategery, so I will tip my cap to him for bringing in one of his best relievers -- in this case Aaron Heilman -- to pitch the bottom of the eighth inning with the Mets down by one run. Old Willie -- i.e. Saturday's version -- would have summoned Joey Mopup to face the top of the Braves' order with the game still within reach. Sadly, Heilman walked Larry Jones and allowed a pop-fly homerun to Mark Teixeira to effectively put the game out of reach. The Mets will lose in the short-term AND the long-term due to Heilman's ill-timed meltdown. Short-term, the Mets lost the game. Long-term, Willie Randolph may be more reluctant to use his best pitchers in high-leverage situations that go against his gut, his gut's ghastly track record be damned.

Carlos Delgado proves me wrong

I have high hopes but low expectations for Carlos Delgado this season. Nevertheless, Delgado looked better at the plate on Sunday than anyone else on the Mets, and his hitting .350 with a couple of walks through the first five games this season. He has just one extra-base hit -- a double -- but he has been swinging the bat pretty well.

The Mets have a day off on Monday before heading to Shea for three games against the Phillies including Tuesday's home opener. It's the last season at Shea, so let's enjoy it.

A long offseason of bitter depression gave way to childlike optimism, all of which culminated in a much-anticipated baseball game played yesterday afternoon at Dolphins Stadium in Miami. The Mets won the game 7-2 behind a great starting effort by Johan Santana and a solid wrap-up by the bullpen. The game was exciting for all of the obvious reasons, but it was also interesting in the sense that it was a sort of microcosm of my own expectations of the season to come. Some observations:

Johan Santana is reasonably proficient

Seven innings, three hits, two runs, eight strikeouts, a couple of walks, 100 pitches, 68 strikes. He looked merely good at times, masterful at others. Some will point out the fact that he dominated a pretty crummy Marlins team. I'll point out that even without Miguel Cabrera the Marlins have a pretty good offense, capable of putting up at least league average production. Their pitching is wretched, and will lead to their undoing, but they are far from anemic with the bat. Santana gave up the two-run blast to Josh Willingham that broke up the prematurely-prognosticated no-hitter in the fourth inning, but otherwise prevented the Marlins from sustaining any kind of consistent attack.

What's more, Santana seemed to moxie up* as the innings wore on. His pitch count hit the century mark just as he struck out Matt Treanor to end the seventh inning, and were it later in the season and the game of greater import you can be sure that Santana would have gone back out there for the eighth. A fine debut by almost any measure.

* Made up expression. Think "Cowboy Up", only add 47% more moxie and a sprig of your favorite tired baseball cliché. Allow to cool, serve and enjoy.

The top half of the lineup is good

The top four spots in the Mets lineup -- Jose Reyes, Luis Castillo, David Wright and Carlos Beltran -- combined to go 7-for-16 with three walks, a resplendent performance from a group of hitters who will be expected to shoulder much of this team's offensive payload. Each member of the quartet reached base at least twice, with Castillo and Wright reaching three times apiece. Reyes and Wright each got a little overzealous on the basepaths, getting thrown out stealing second and third, respectively. Replays show that one or both might have actually been safe, but it was a bad day on the bases for a team that led the National League in swipes last season.

The bottom half of the order is bad

The bottom four spots in the lineup -- Carlos Delgado, Angel Pagan, Ryan Church and Brian Schneider -- combined to go 2-for-14 with a walk, an underwhelming effort even for this group. The two hits *did* contribute to the Mets' six-run fourth inning, with Pagan and Church knocking in the first two runs of the game. I'm not going to get too down on this group after just one game, but let's just say that my opinion of them as offensive performers wasn't swayed much by the results of this particular contest.

Willie properly leveraging his bullpen

Bwaaahh? Bullpen management has been one of Willie Randolph's most egregious failings as Mets skipper, but he did a fine job yesterday of leveraging the platoon advantage held by some of his relievers. Matt Wise relieved Santana to begin the eighth inning and allowed two of the first three hitters to reach base. With Mike Jacobs approaching the dish, Willie Randolph pulled Wise in favor of Schoeneweis to get the lefty-lefty matchup that swung the balance in the Mets' favor. Were the game closer, the bullpen call would have gone to Pedro Feliciano, but if you can't bring in The Show to face a lefty with a four-run lead in the first game of the season, you probably can't bring him in at all. Schoeneweis got Jacobs to ground out harmlessly to first, advancing the baserunners to second-and-third in the process.

Were this 2007 (or 2006 or 2005 for that matter), I was pretty confident that Schoeneweis would have been left in the game to face Willingham, who had homered four innings earlier. Willie Randolph v2008.1 had other ideas, though, and signaled the bullpen to send in Jorge Sosa and his tornado slider, utilizing the righty-righty platoon advantage against Willingham. Sosa struck out the Marlins left-fielder to end the threat, and after the Mets added a tack-on run in the top of the ninth Aaron Heilman came on and blew away Jorge Cantu, Cody Ross and Luis Gonzalez to wrap up the Mets' first win of the season and Johan Santana's first win as a Met.

The best part? The Mets are 1-0 and they still have Pedro Martinez taking the mound tonight. How good does that feel?