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.

Date	IP	H	BB	R	GmSc
4/22	5.0	7	5	3	38
4/27	5.1	7	3	3	42
5/6	5.0	8	5	5	30
5/12	5.0	5	5	6	36

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.

The shine appears to have come off of Nelson Figueroa, who has walked twelve batters to just eight strikeouts over his past three starts, failing to break a 42 game score in any of those outings. Things were looking up after his first two starts of the season, as Figgy posted a 13-to-4 strikeout-to-walk ratio and notched individual game scores of 64 and 68. It was a feel-good story for everyone involved: from the fans, to Figgy's family celebrating in Billy Wagner's luxury box at Shea, to Figgy himself.

Did you think it would last forever? These last few starts have been a window into why Figueroa was out of Major League Baseball for five years. His season ERA is up to 4.81 and the odds are pretty good that it'll keep going up, especially if he continues to allow more than two baserunners every inning. I like him, and I continue to root for him, and I still think he's probably a better option in the starting rotation than Jorge Sosa. One of them is likely to get the boot once Matt Wise is ready to come off the disabled list, something that could happen as soon as Friday. The alternative would be to send Joe Smith back to New Orleans, but, unlike Sosa, Smith actually adds something to the bullpen picture. Sosa seemingly only adds runs to the other team's docket.

The Mets still seem to be in Figueroa's corner, though with every start he continues to detract from his own case. He got a bit unlucky with the Blake DeWitt inside-the-parker last night, but even if Ryan Church immediately recognized that the ball had stayed in the yard DeWitt probably winds up on third. David Wright's throwing error on the subsequent play would have chased DeWitt home anyway, so Church's confusion doesn't absolve Figueroa of that extra run allowed.

Pitching aside, the Mets' offense was pucking fathetic last night. They had baserunners galore, but went something like 2-for-13 with runners in scoring position, with Wright responsible for two of those missed opportunities -- both strikeouts -- including one in the bottom of the eighth. Overall the Mets struck out twelve times, including four times looking (!), which is pretty amazing, I think.

The whole offense looks terrible right now. Church and Brian Schneider are both hitting over .300 and, though batting average isn't the go-to stat it once was, it's at least some indication of how well someone is swinging the bat. The Mets' regulars who weren't with the Nationals last season are hitting .260, .265, .250, .216, .232 and .219. Some of them are drawing walks and getting on base in other ways, but those batting averages are ghastly. Tim McCarver must be rolling over in his grave.

Mr. Met: Brian Schneider, +9.7%
Mr. Regret: Nelson Figueroa, -29.6%
(Non-)Clutchiest Plate Appearance: Castillo strikeout (looking!) to end the game, -14.3%
(Non-)Clutchiest Pitch: DeWitt ISTP homerun off Figueroa, -29.1%
WPA by Offense: -33.1%
WPA by Pitchers: -16.9%
WPA by Opponent: +0.0%

News fluttered in prior to Tuesday's game against the Pirates that Moises Alou did *not* have a fracture in his ankle bone thingy and that he might be ready to come off Medicare the disabled list. Endy Chavez's three hits against the Bucs notwithstanding, the return of a healthy-ish Peehands McGee would provide a huge lift for an offense that ranks near the bottom of the league in a number of categories. The over/under on 2008 games played by Alou is around 60, but now's as good a time as any to get those out of the way so the Mets can go sign Barry Bonds for the pennant run. Or they could just stick with Angel Pagan. See if I care.

As for last night's game, we can all thank the Jebus that the Mets came away with the win. There's little worse than watching a four-hour snoozefest against the Pirates only to cough up a tenuous lead in the ninth inning and ultimately lose the game in spectacular fashion. I can hardly summon the energy to comment on how boring this game actually was, which was an incredible feat in and of itself considering that Johan Santana started the game.

Having just written that, I'll still offer that there were a few items that piqued my interest.

1. Ryan Church

Everyone's favorite silly ignorant erstwhile theologian-ballplayer went 1-for-5, but contribute a massively exciting 2-run homer that knotted the game in the fourth inning. Most importantly, it gave me an opportunity to shout "Time to go to Church!" for all to hear and enjoy (all = Kim and the dogs). For her part, Kim was a good sport and even repeated my clever slogan, to the continued puzzlement of the dogs. Whatever. Those humps never appreciated my wry punny wit anyway.

2. Jose Reyes

Hoo-ray for Jo-sé! Reyes had a tremendous game, going 3-for-3 with a triple, a run, a rib, and two-plus walks. He also added a caught stealing to his season register (three now) and another error to same (five now). The error indirectly led to the Pirates' tying run off Billy Wagner in the ninth and directly led to me having to suffer through two more innings of Mets-Pirates "baseball".

Speaking of Reyes's walks, I smugly referred to his three walks as "two-plus" because I really struggle with giving a hitter credit for intentional passes. The hitter should certainly get credit for it in some manner, but giving him points in the discipline column just for standing there seems disingenuous, especially considering how important walks are in gauging a player's development and overall approach at the plate.

To me, the subject of intentional versus unintentional walks is not an insignificant one, and most baseball stat sites do expose the divergence if you dig deep enough. For instance, Reyes "drew" 77 walks in 2007, up from 53 the year before; an increase of 24. However, if we only consider unintentional walks, the increase is just 17 (47 to 61). Look at Ryan Howard: considered a patient hitter (albeit one who strikes out prodigiously), Howard walked 107 times last season. Great, except that 35 of those were intentional. So, Howard really walked 72 times on his own, just 11 more than Reyes. If anything, intentional walks are more a reflection of power than patience, though there's no easy way to track them that way.</digression>

3. Luis Castillo

Luca went 0-for-2 but picked up three walks, raising his on-base percentage to .382. Sure, his slugging lags well behind at just .303, but at least he's doing something, and a walk is just as good as a bunt single.

4. Jorge Sosa

Woot, no runs allowed!

5. Carlos Delgado

There's the big guy we all know and love. Any boost he might have picked up from his big game on Sunday was surely washed away by Monday's rain, because by Tuesday he was back to his old sucky self. I'm not closing the book on him just yet, but I'm also only leaving it open a crack so someone might actually think I'm still reading it.

Quick turnaround to an afternoon game on Wednesday before the Mets head west to play the Diamondbacks. They're likely to get Micah Owings, Brandon Webb and Dan Haren. Woot?

I just got back from the oral surgeon following the completely-painless extraction of a couple of wisdom teeth. I'm a bit of a worrier when it comes to this sort of thing, and I have to admit that the anticipation of the procedure was at least fifty times worse than the actual performance of same. The whole thing took maybe ten minutes, and all I felt was some light scraping and some pressure as my teeth were being wriggled free. The extractions were followed by a trip to CVS to pick up some vicodin and then a stop at the grocery store for drinkable yogurt, pudding, applesauce and soup. I just popped my first vicodin and I have to say that I'm well on my way to Hollywood elite status.

Thankfully, the prescription painkillers have left me blissfully numb, with nary a care for the Mets' stupendous bungling of last night's game against the Nationals. Now, obviously the Mets shan't be expected to win all eighteen-some-odd games from Washington this year, but the pitching really stunk up the joint something fierce, as Oliver Perez was unable to hang on to a three-run fifth-inning lead. Perez and Aaron Heilman combined to allow seven runs in the fifth and sixth innings, effectively putting the game out of reach. "Effectively" became "undoubtedly" when Jorge Sosa coughed up three more runs in the seventh, and the Mets coasted from there en route to a 10-5 drubbing.

The offense doesn't get a free pass in this one, as they collectively stranded five runners in scoring position and failed to come up with the big hit on numerous occasions. Carlos Delgado took another oh-fer as he watched his average plummet to .198. Jose Reyes went 1-for-5 and is batting .259 while David Wright went 0-for-4 with a walk as his average fell below .300 for the season (of course, unlike Delgado or Reyes, Wright has 19 walks and 15 extra-base hits, so his overall batting line is plenty healthy).

I'd have more to say, but my motor skills are rapidly deteriorating. The good news is that I believe the server problems we've been having the past two days are behind us, so we'll have a regular swag contest and game thread tonight. So if you'll excuse me, I have some heavy machinery to go operate.

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.

Good news: I just ordered an iPhone. After years of suffering with Verizon's awful phone selection I finally decided to jump ship. I'm still using the Motorola Q that I bought a couple of years ago, and am bewildered that Verizon hasn't come up with anything better in the interim. The other smartphones they have released are all too thick; the Q is less than a half-inch deep, which allows it to fit comfily in my pocket. The iPhone is about the same thickness and some 200% snazzier, so I'm definitely excited about it. Any iPhone owners out there please leave your impressions in the comments here. Do you love it? Are you underwhelmed? Did I just throw my money down the toilet? All welcome.

Bad News: The Mets still don't have a fifth starter, though it could very well be Jorge Sosa. We know that Mike Pelfrey and Orlando Hernandez have done little to distinguish themselves this spring, though I think it's safe to assume that once Hernandez is back in game shape that he will take the ball every five, at least until he succumbs to some random malady that is only supposed to afflict 80-year-old Jewish men.

Meanwhile, Jorge Sosa might be the man to make a couple of April starts while Hernandez is still working the kinks out of his antique engine. Sosa was credible as a starter last season, posting a 4.59 ERA in 80.1 innings; nothing flashy, but completely serviceable for the last line guy in the rotation. He was terrific to begin the season and fell apart shortly thereafter, but with any luck the Mets will only need him for a few outings at the very most, so hopefully he can get in and out before things inevitable go "boom".

In other news, Reed Johnson signed with the Cubs, so despite Dan Scotto's ovations from Queens, Johnson will be suiting up on the North Side and the Mets will break camp with Endy Chavez, Angel Pagan and maybe, just maybe, Brady Clark as their three-four-five outfielders.

Speaking of Endy, I love the guy; I was at Shea for the catch, and Jebus knows that Endy will be living off the residuals of that magnificent piece of glovework for the rest of his days. That said, he's really a stinker with the bat. He plays a mighty fine defensive outfield regardless of where you put him, but he would have considerable difficulty hitting his way out of a paper bag and for a team with championship aspirations I really wonder if great defense is enough to slide by at a premium offensive position like left field. No one is saying that defense isn't important, but it's not nearly as important as offense, and the Mets are going to be sorely lacking in that department from a certain corner outfield spot as long as Moises Alou and his pee-hands are on the shelf.

I'm going to be out of town for the day, though I'll be back tomorrow night. Not that any of you care, but I'll have limited access to the internets or, at least, this site, so I expect the three of you who regularly post comments here to behave yourselves.

Here are some links.

• Rob Neyer thinks that David Wright will be the best player in baseball over the next five years. That's good news for the Mets, and Mets fans, and teeny boppers. Neyer put together a list of the top fifty ballplayers over the next five years, and the Mets have three such gentlemen in the top seven: the aforementioned Wright at numero uno, Johan Santana at #5 and Jose Reyes at #7. Carlos Beltran clocks in at #26, just for good measure.
• Over The Monster compiled a PDF preview of more than 50 Red Sox players. The list is very sharp and informative, and it's something we should consider doing here if I had either the time or the inclination to do so.
• Someone named Joe Lavin found a pre-release copy of the new Jose Canseco tell-all at a local bookstore, mistakedly put on the shelf a solid week before it was supposed to go on sale. I bought Canseco's first book, Juiced from the bargain shelf at Borders for less than three bucks, and it was actually far from awful. I was a big fan of Canseco during my formative baseball years, so some of my enjoyment was likely derived from nostalgia for the slugger, but the fact that much of what he wrote actually turned out to be true scares me more than I would care to let on.
• John Sickels asks if Twins fans will be satisfied with their return on the Johan Santana trade in five years time (ed note: what's with all of the "five years" articles today?"). My guess is "No", they won't be satisfied.
• I missed this last week, but Joe Sheehan talked about small sample sizes and the absurdity of using spring training stats as any kind of barometer for future big league success over at Baseball Prospectus.

Here's today's Mets swag game thread contest form (more info here). The Mets take on the Marlins at 1:10pm in PSL; video via SNY or MLB.tv.