Not really a great game for the Mets, though with a little help from the Braves' defense it turned into a great win. The Mets left eleven men on base and Pedro Martinez allowed four runs in seven innings (four runs bad, seven innings good). His strikeout rate was pretty good and his 6-to-1 strikeout-to-walk rate was fine, so there were definitely some positive signs there.

Carlos Delgado has been struggling a bit lately, so it was nice to see him get off the schneid against the wretched Braves by going 5-for-5 including the game-winning "single" off "Vladimir" "Nunez". David Wright scored the winning run and went 3-for-4 with a homerun and a walk. Ramon Castro went 0-for-4 and will now ride the pine for the next two weeks while Jerry Manuel needlessly gives playing time to Brian Schneider and Robinson Cancel.

Luis Ayala gave up just one hit in an inning and a third for the win in relief, and erstwhile Met Anderson Hernandez knocked in a run in the Nationals' win over the Phillies. The Mets move to 2.5 games in front of Philadelphia and six games ahead of the Marlins. The Braves are*chortle* 15 games back. The Mets are now 14 games over .500 and have the third-best record in the National League, trailing only the Cubs and Brewers.

Big winners: Carlos Delgado, +73.3% WPA, David Wright, +23.6% WPA
Big losers: Pedro Martinez, -19.3% WPA, Fernando Tatis, -13.7% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Delgado RBI "single", +28.8% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: McCann two-run double, -25.9% WPA
Total pitcher WPA: +12.8%
Total batter WPA: +37.2%
GWRBI: Carlos Delgado

Game Thread Roll Call

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

Joel Sherman breaks down the Mets' three options to remedy the bullpen situation, as suggested by Jerry Manuel in his post-game news conference yesterday. Those options are:

1. Have Eddie Kunz, who has all of three major league appearances, reprise his Double-A closing role. This is the most likely choice.

2. Keep Brian Stokes in the rotation and call upon either John Maine or Oliver Perez to serve as a multi-inning fireman. For now the Mets don't want to mess with Mike Pelfrey by requesting a rotation-to-pen change.

3. Summon top pitching prospect Jon Niese for the rotation and use Stokes plus either Maine or Perez to serve as the main late-inning relievers.

Sherman goes on to discuss why these are all potentially horrible ideas, particularly the ones that involve moving young starters to the bullpen. The Kunz move makes the most sense to me, at least in that he hasn't yet completely proven himself to be a failure like everyone else in the bullpen.

Billy Wagner expects to return on Monday, which is six whole games away. He is scheduled to make at least one rehab appearance with the Brooklyn Cyclones between now and then.

Jerry Manuel called Ramon Castro a pussy, in so many words.

At MetsGeek, Alex Nelson looks at the pitchers the Mets will face against the Nationals.

I don't want this to get political or anything, but this is funny as hell. And it's Olympic-themed!

The trade deadline is fast approaching and the list of available players is growing shorter. At the same time, the Mets continue to pitch and hit effectively and areas of greatest need are not as considerable as they were as little as a month ago. Then again, winning cures all ills and great play can often mask shortcomings.

Area of need: corner outfield

For instance, Fernando Tatis is hitting .318/.370/.520. Fernando. Tatis. Career .263/.345/.443 hitter. Much worse than that since 2000. He's hitting lefties and righties equally well, and he hasn't completely embarrassed himself in the field. We're only talking 160-some-odd plate appearances, though, and small sample size red flags abound. He's been a great story and a huge lift for the Mets with Moises Alou out for the season and Ryan Church still out as he recovers from the effects of his second concussion this season. Church may be back soon, but neither that nor his long-term status are guaranteed.

Even if Tatis were somehow able to sustain anything resembling his current level of production, Endy Chavez continues to be an offensive sinkhole in right field. Sure, the defense is great and the .272 batting average is decent, but the .316 on-base percentage is 13th among 17 National League right-fielders with at least 250 plate appearances. His .329 slugging percentage is 16th of 17, besting only Washington's Austin Kearns. Endy's .644 OPS is likewise 16th of 17. I don't know which is more astonishing: that Endy is so bad at hitting or that he's managed to accrue 250 plate appearances while being so bad at hitting. That's a poll for another day, I guess. Regardless, Endy's defense is probably good enough to justify carrying his anemic bat as a fourth or fifth outfielder, but as a starting corner outfielder he is pitifully feckless.

Area of need: relief pitching

Billy Wagner's propensity for eating it hard in big games notwithstanding, he's the Mets' best relief pitcher and still one of the best closers in the National League. Aaron Heilman has been a lot better of late and is probably the Mets' number two, which is far preferable to just plain number two, which was Heilman's nom de fan for the first two months of the season.

Duaner Sanchez is a mystery right now. He was effective if unspectacular for the season's first three months, but has been mostly horrible for a couple of weeks now and is suffering a loss in velocity and deterioration of confidence. After missing a year and a half there's no telling what shape his shoulder is in or whether his arm can hold up for an entire season. Maybe it's just a matter of fatigue and he needs a little time off. At all events, he's a definite question mark moving forward.

Pedro Feliciano is still murder on lefties, but unlike the past two seasons, this year he has been downright awful against righties, who have rocked him to the tune of .342/.419/.553. There's nothing wrong with having a lefty specialist in the bullpen, but the Mets already have one guy -- Scott Schoeneweis -- who can't get righties out, and despite his dramatic platoon splits this season I'm pretty sure Jerry Manuel still thinks that Feliciano is a quality guy to throw out there against all comers. Then again, two full years of competence is more meaningful than one half-year of ineptitude, but you still have to assign greater weight to the recent performance, and that's not good news for Feliciano or the Mets.

Joe Smith is the opposite of Feliciano: he dominates righties and has a tough time with the southpaws. Righties have hit just .190/.271/.302 while lefties have gone .293/.408/.415. If only he and Feliciano could play the field I might be inclined to pull Tatis in the late innings and alternate lefty-righty with Smith and Feliciano for an inning or two. It all comes down to how Manuel decides to use them, so let's hope that his inquisitive mind and nerd glasses mean he knows a thing or two about platoon splits.

Area of need: first base?

A month ago this would have been an obvious need, but with Carlos Delgado swinging a mighty big stick I'm not so sure any more. Given how precipitously he declined last year and how quickly he has resurged, you really have to wonder if those nagging injuries were bothering him more than he let on. The elbow in particular caused him a lot of trouble the last year and a half, and if he is finally out from under those problems then maybe it shouldn't be so surprising that he's back to mashing the ball. He's not going to OPS 1.200 the rest of the way as he has during July, but he has finally pushed his OPS over the league average for a first baseman and there's reason for optimism that he might keep it there.

Mark Teixeira and Adam Dunn will cost an arm and a leg to acquire for the remainder of this season and both will be free agents at season's end. They'll both be on the Mets's radar come November, but I think they'll stand pat this summer and hope that Delgado's resurrection is for real.

Area of need: bench

Marlon Anderson is terrible, and needs to be jettisoned as quickly as possible. I like to think that if the Mets could find anyone else worth plugging into that prestigious 25th spot on the roster that they would have already done so, but right now the dried up husks of Lenny Harris and Matt Franco both look like better options. The rest of the bench is serviceable, with Damion Easley and Argenis Reyes both providing decent production. Nick Evans and Robinson Cancel are nothing special, but the Mets seem inclined to give Evans a few looks at the big league level, and as far as Cancel is concerned, well, they would otherwise just be throwing away the rest of the post-game buffet.

Area of need: catcher?

This one's a trick, because the Mets don't actually need to acquire a new catcher; they just need to play their best catcher more often. That means more time on the pine for Brian Schneider and more cracks at the starting lineup for Ramon Castro. Here is my entire argument:

Ramon Castro: .290/.365/.538
Brian Schneider: .247/.337/.300

So, as long as Jerry Manuel continues to read this blog I think the Mets will be fine at catcher. Or, at least, have the RSS feed in his Google Reader. Either or.

In summation and in conclusion: improve the corner outfield and bench if doing so would come at minimal cost to the farm system. A solid reliever would be nice, but given the going rate of solid relievers I would be more inclined to go with what we've got or, possibly, promote from within. Perhaps Eddie Camacho, Eude Brito or Eddie Kunz -- all currently with Binghamton -- could be given a shot. They can't be much worse than Carlos Muniz has been. Stay the course at first base and catcher, giving more playing time to Castro at the latter.

Johan Santana finally gets the complete game he should have had a week ago, and drops his ERA to 2.93, good for sixth in the NL. He thoroughly dominated the Cardinals, a solo homerun by Albert Pujols the only real blemish. I'm told that Duaner Sanchez wasn't even allowed out of the clubhouse until the game was over just to be on the safe side.

The same Mets' offense that was stymied by Kyle Lohse a few weeks ago battered him relentlessly through five-plus innings, cranking out seven runs on eleven hits including three homeruns. The Mets tallied 17 hits overall including seven for extra-bases. Santana went 2-for-2 with a run batted in, everyone in the lineup had at least one hit and either scored or drove in a run.

Carlos Beltran made an in-friggin-credible catch at the wall, but let's see him come up big when it's *not* a blowout, eh? Ramon Castro continues to support my theory that Brian Schneider has incriminating photos of Jerry Manuel or Omar Minaya or perhaps both at the same time. What does this guy have to do to get into more than one game a week?

Big winners: Johan Santana, +33.0% WPA, Endy Chavez, +9.4 % WPA
Big losers: Carlos Delgado, -8.8% WPA, Damion Easley, -4.4% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Beltran RBI-single in 3rd, +9.1% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: Delgado double-play in 1st, -8.5% WPA
Total pitcher WPA: +33.0%
Total batter WPA: +17.0%

Game Thread Roll Call

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

Not Pelfrey's best outing, but the Mets are back in a tie for first place, so woot! Pelfrey got off to a great start and looked completely dominant through the first three innings. Basically every out recorded was either a groundball or a strikeout, which is exactly what he needs to happen to be successful. Things fell apart in the fourth, as Pelfrey starting leaving the ball up in the zone and the Reds' hitters jumped all over him. His fastball didn't have the sharp downward bite that it had earlier in the game, and good hitters will hit a 94-MPH fastball if it's not moving anywhere. Pelfrey ultimately allowed three homeruns -- to Dunn, Phillips and Encarnacion -- after allowing just four homeruns all season. His 9-to-8 groundball-to-flyball ratio was not especially good (for a groundball pitcher), and the more more balls are hit in the air the greater the likelihood of them leaving the park, especially in Cincinnati.

It wasn't all bad for Pelfrey, though. He was extremely economical with his pitches, throwing just 89 in seven innings of work. Even though he didn't have his A+ stuff he did an adequate job keeping the Mets in the game, slogging through those seven innings and giving the Mets a shot at winning the thing. Thanks to Robinson Cancel's leadoff double in the tenth and the mildly inaccurate arm of Edwin Encarnacion the Mets managed a split of the four-game series. The Mets may have been thinking sweep when the series started, but they should be happy to walk away with two victories. They trailed late in both of the games they eventually won, so a bad break or two and this would've been a tough-to-swallow four-game sweep.

And now for everyone's favorite segment, a little something we like to call "Why the !@#$ is Marlon Anderson still on the roster?". Anderson somehow (divine intervention?) went 1-for-3 at the plate, but whatever value that might've added was wiped out manyfold by his spectacularly ass-headed defensive maneuver in the fourth inning. Ken Griffey hit a flyball down the left-field line to lead off the bottom of the fourth inning which Marlon loafed after as if the ball were clearly headed into the stands. Much to Marlon's surprise, the ball landed some fifteen feet fair and Marlon had to pretend he actually gave a crap as it bounded into the stands for a ground-rule double. Is this the best we can do? Kinda reminds me of that scene in Wayne's World 2.

Wayne: Where's the First Presbyterian Church on Gordon Street?
Gas Station Attendant: *bumbling silence*
Wayne: Gordon Street!
Gas Station Attendant: Oh, yeah. I ... once knew a girl ... who lived on Gordon Street ... but that was a long time ago ... when I was young.
Wayne: Do we have to put up with this? Can't we get a better actor? I know it's a small part, but we can do better than this.

And then Chuck Heston steps in and nails the bit part, bringing Wayne to tears in the process. I realize Marlon Anderson is the 25th man on the roster, but can't we do better than this? Where's our Chuck Heston?

While we're at it, why isn't Ramon Castro playing three days a week, let alone five days a week? Schneider is 33rd in baseball in EqA among catchers with at least 80 plate appearances at .234. That's cherry-picking a bit, as I lowered the bar enough to get Castro and his 93 plate appearances in there. If we bump it up to 150 PA Schneider is at 26th out of 38. That's bad. Not as bad as I thought, actually, but there are still 25 catchers out there that have been better, which is just under one per team. Given 150 PA I'm certain Castro could do better. I'm pretty sure if Castro flipped around and batted lefty he could do better. Robinson Cancel could probably do better. Hell, Raul Casanova is at .253 in 61 plate appearances.

I'm making a plea here: C'mon, Jerry, give your team a fighting chance. Let's make believe for one day that you're *not* a slave to mindless baseball decision-making they way Willie Randolph was. Shock us. Yea, the Mets have won a bunch of games since you took over and they're tied for first place. These are all good things. But when you consistently make choices that put your team at a disadvantage, it just means that the Mets have to do more to overcome the nigh-untenable position you're putting them in. Plainly, they're winning despite you, not because of you. Marlon Anderson hasn't done anything this year to justify significant pinch-hitting appearances, let alone ever starting in a baseball game. Brian Schneider's erstwhile reputation as a plus defender is not a good enough reason to play him in lieu of a clearly superior catcher. Just put the best team you have out there as often as you can and the rest will work itself out.

Big winners: Duaner Sanchez, +25.3% WPA, Carlos Delgado, +21.2% WPA
Big losers: Endy Chavez, -36.4% WPA, Mike Pelfrey, -18.0% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Castro goes blastro, +19.7% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: Brandon Phillips homerun, -17.4% WPA
Total pitcher WPA: +17.0%
Total batter WPA: +33.0%

Game Thread Roll Call

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

Ahh, three games over .500. The Mets haven't been this far to the good since they were 20-17 on 5/13, and it's nice to see them get a couple of solid victories against the dregs of the National League. Of course, if David Wright doesn't get selected as the last guy on the All Star team then the Giants will actually have more representation at Yankee Stadium next week than the Mets, though I guess that says more about the All Star Game than about either of these teams.

This was a nice win for the Mets, but the game was really pretty boring. I found myself far more engrossed in the mildly off-topic game chatter discussion than in what was actually happening at Shea. All of the Mets' five runs were scored in two innings, and the Giants managed only six baserunners all game and none after the fifth inning. After a short rain delay in the middle of the fifth, the Mets' bullpen combined to retire the final twelve Giants. The Cardinals' bullpen wasn't quite so good, and a Ryan Howard homerun (for real this time) later and the Mets are still 1.5 games back in the East. Doesn't matter, really. The Mets can't busy themselves worrying about what the Phillies, Marlins and Braves do; that's for us to dwell on.

I've spent plenty of time railing against the Mets' offense this year, but the has-beens and never-will-bes came through tonight when middle of the order didn't bother showing up. Wright-Beltran-Easley (?) went 0-for-10 with a couple of walks, while Endy, Delgado, Castro and OurAnus Reyes had eight of the Mets' nine hits and drove in four of the five runs. Though Castro's only problem has been not getting enough playing time while Mr. Six-Extra-Base-Hits-All-Year hits like a girl and we're regaled with anecdotes about how he calls a great game and has a wonderful rapport with the pitching staff. Hippo goes boom is all you need to know.

The guy I'm forgetting is Jose Reyes, who picked up a single to raise his average to .301 and added two more walks to his growing total, bumping his OBP up to .362. He's OPS-ing .846, he's a shortstop, and he just turned 25. That should keep you nice and warm at night.

Thursday matinée tomorrow, so get some sleep before the Mets go for the sweep.

Big winners: Ramon Castro, +30.4% WPA, Johan Santana, +26.7% WPA
Big losers: Carlos Beltran, -7.5% WPA, Damion Easley, -7.0% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Hippo goes blippo, +27.8% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: Chavez flyout with 1st and 2nd in the third, -4.9% WPA
Total pitcher WPA: +41.9%
Total batter WPA: +8.1%

Game Thread Roll Call

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

I didn't see much of the game, but I heard good things. Tony Armas was poor early, better later on. The Mets' bats showed up. The bullpen was strong, Reyes got caught stealing again. Church is already back in the swing of things; Beltran needs a day off, maybe? Schneider needs a bunch of days off?

We went to free movie night again, and the Mets won, again. We saw Wanted, which was quite a bit better than the commercials made it look (for once). I never read the graphic novels; I've never read any graphic novels except for TMNT, and was shocked -- and delighted, at the time -- to find that my favorite mutated amphibians were far more crass and violent in their graphic novel incarnation. I'm told that the Wanted film adaptation isn't terribly true to the original story, but that was irrelevant to me as I had no basis for comparison. I'm not going to do a whole review thing here, but if you're into the whole action/betrayal/revenge story "arc" then you'll enjoy it.

Big winners: Ramon Castro, +23.2% WPA, David Wright, +18.2% WPA
Big losers: Tony Armas, -5.5% WPA, Jose Reyes, -11.1% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Ramon Castro two-run double, +20.1% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: Ankiel two-run blast, -17.1% WPA
Total pitcher WPA: +39.8%
Total batter WPA: +10.2%

I'm going to try to get all of the June game forms filled out and the swag contest results for the month tabulated today or tonight. I know you guys are champing at the bit.