The Mets have a lot of problems right now, the least of which is probably the performance of their fifth starter. However, has anyone else noticed that Nelson Figueroa has been -- not to get too technical here -- pretty effing crummy of late? He was the Princess of Flushing after his first two starts against the Brewers and Nationals, but he has been mostly dreadful over his last four starts.

A little arithmetic gives us 20.1 innings pitched over those last four starts, including 17 runs allowed, 18 walks, 27 hits and three Mets losses. That's more than two baserunners every inning and an RA of more than 7.5. I realize that Figgy got off to a good start, and I don't enjoy ragging on him because he's a good guy and a fun story. Nevertheless, you've got a tough row to hoe if you're going to argue that he is really giving the Mets a good chance to win every time out. Or any time out, for that matter.

Pedro Martinez is throwing in Port St. Lucie, but there is no immediate timetable for his return and I think many would be surprised if he returned before June. Tony Armas is pitching pretty well in New Orleans. Despite a 1-3 record, he has a 3.02 ERA and a solid 36-to-11 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 47.2 innings.

The Mets are said to be considering calling up Adam Bostick to pitch on Wednesday, though he hasn't been anything special in seven starts this season. His 3.83 ERA is acctually second on the team to Armas, though the 26 strikeouts and 16 walks in 40 innings is hardly the stuff of legend. Claudio Vargas has made two starts since being called up to Triple-A and, though his 4.91 ERA is uninspiring, his 11-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 11 innings is a good start.

Freddy Garcia is out there, but he won't be ready until July at the earliest.

(what's this?)

Mr. Met: Damion Easley, +13.6%
Mr. Regret: Nelson Figueroa, -41.9%
(Non-)Clutchiest Plate Appearance: Easley homerun off Perez, +10.6%
(Non-)Clutchiest Pitch: Flores 2-run double off Figueroa, -24.5%
WPA by Offense: +3.5%
WPA by Pitchers: -53.5%
WPA by Opponent: +0.0%

• If there was ever any doubt before, it should be clear as Crystal Gravy that Jorge Sosa needs to hit the road. The Mets will have to eat $1.5 million or so, but to keep him on the roster at the expense of Joe Smith is quite simply bad baseball. Matt Wise is ready to come off the disabled list and the Mets need to make a decision; let's hope they make the right one.
• Smith's presence in the bullpen is even more critical in light of Duaner Sanchez's recent poor outings and Aaron Heilman's ongoing struggles.
• Billy Wagner struck out the side in a meaningless ninth inning. When you look at closers around the league crumbling before our very eyes you really start to recognize what a terrific signing Wagner turned out to be. Four years and $40+ million for a 34-year-old closer seemed like a lot of money at the time, but he really is one of the few dominant, dependable closers in baseball.

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.