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%

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.

Beating the Phillies is certainly fun, even when it takes seven pitchers to do so.

The arms

Oliver Perez threw 5.2 scoreless innings and struck out seven: Good. He also walked five, including Pedro Feliz on four pitches: Bad. I'm not going to harp on it just yet because the results have been good, but Ollie has walked 12 batters in 21.2 innings this season and sports a gaudy 1.48 WHIP. I'm no baseball expert, but allowing a a baserunner-and-a-half every inning isn't a great recipe for success.

Pedro Feliciano was bad, allowing a single to Greg Dobbs and a walk to Eric Bruntlett (!) to load the bases with one out in the bottom of the eighth. Feliciano left without having retired a batter, and was relieved by Aaron Heilman. Heilman induced a flyball out to left that Angel Pagan bungled into an RBI single. The Bulldog shook off the lousy defense behind him and came back to strike out Geoff Jenkins and Jayson Werth, co-authors of the forthcoming book, How Not to Get the Run in from Third: Ridiculous Spellings of Common First Names and Other Astute Observations.

The sticks

The Mets' 4-5-6 hitters went 0-for-12 with no runs batted in, but their 1-2-3 hitters went 6-for-12 with all four runs batted in. Despite apparently rediscovering his allergy to walks, Jose Reyes continues to swing the bat well since his talk with Carlos Beltran a few days ago. Interestingly, Beltran has been in a funk ever since, so maybe Reyes needs to impart some of his own advice. On the field, Reyes picked up a double and a two-run homer in four trips to the plate, scoring two runs and igniting the offense as only he can.

Luis Castillo reached base twice in four plate-apps. Oliver Perez reached base twice in two plate-apps. Just some food for thought. Meanwhile, Brian Schneider continues to reach base at a solid rate, despite each of his 16 hits this season going for singles and nothing more. A .383 OBP from your catcher is a nice luxury, but the zero extra-base hits still leave his OPS below the .700 mark. Even Paul Lo Duca hit the occasional two-bagger.

Anything else?

Anyone suggesting that Pat Burrell be the answer at first next year should Mark Teixeira sign elsewhere should consider this: He hit .220/.370/.424 away from CBP last season and .295/.430/586 within the friendly confines. He *did* hit very nice .254/.383/.517 on the road in 2006, so maybe last year was an aberration. Burrell has patience and power, and a lead glove to boot. The Phillies have no choice but to play him in left, but the Mets are likely to have a vacancy next year at first. Delgado almost certainly won't be back, and the Mets may balk at a $20+ million price tag for Teixeira. A shorter, cheaper deal to someone like Burrell could make a lot of sense for the Mets, especially with Teix going for 7/$150 or more.

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.

Don't forget to keep an eye on the FanPosts and FanShots. You can find them on their own pages or, more conveniently, on the right sidebar. FanPosts replaced the diaries on the old system, and are your opportunity to post your own thoughts on whatever you want. Some examples:

- Recap the latest game
- Recap the Mets' minor league action
- Report some bit of Mets news before I do
- Review a baseball book/movie/game/ballpark

Really, anything you want. If you don't have much to say but want to point out an interesting link, YouTube video, quote, etc., you can use the FanShots. There's even a neat bookmarklet that you can add via the FanShots page that lets you create a FanShot on-the-fly from any website you are visiting without leaving that page. Just drag the "Share on SBNation" button to your book mark bar/folder and you're all set. Once you have added it, it's a snap to use. For instance, say you stumble across a great article at The Hardball Times. Just click on your bookmarklet and a mini window will pop up with options for posting a link in the FanShots here.

Particularly interesting FanPosts and FanShots will be promoted to the main page so everyone can see your brilliant work. I encourage everyone to take advantage of these features; they are unique to SBNation and are great community-building tools. This site is about everyone here, not just me, and I want you all to feel like you have a say in the direction and the growth of this place. Any feedback, comments, questions, suggestions are always welcome.

Just as they lost their first Shea home opener in 1964, the Mets likewise fell in defeat in their final Shea home opener. Forty-six years ago it was 4-3 to the Pirates; yesterday it was 5-2 to the rival Phillies. If you're keeping count, that would be nine straight losses to the Phils, each as anguishing as the one that preceded it. The difference between that original Shea team and this one is that the 1964 team had lost 231 games the prior two seasons and wasn't expected to do much better in the franchise's third season*. Nowadays, the Mets are draped in the kind of high expectations that come with a payroll approaching $150 million.

* They didn't do much better, losing 109 games in 1964 after losing 120 and 111 in 1962 and 1963 respectively. They went on to lose another 112 in 1965 before finally breaking the century mark by dropping only 95 games in 1966.

It isn't time to panic yet. Is it time to be concerned, though? Maybe. The Mets certainly have their share of issues, several of which are pointed out by Joel Sherman in his most recent blog post. The Mets are 2-4 through six games, which is as close to 0-6 as it is to 4-2, whatever that means. 2-4 seems really bad because the Mets have dropped three games in a row, but if they managed to win the second game against the Marlins or the Braves (or both!) they would be 3-3 or 4-2 and perhaps we wouldn't be so alarmed. 2-4 looks crappy because the Mets have lost two-thirds of their games, but they aren't going to lose 108 games this year, and a couple of wins in the next few days would certainly assuage our most immediate fears of the team's inexorable doom.

Some things have definitely gone wrong so far, most notably team health, as the Mets have already lost Pedro Martinez, Matt Wise and Luis Castillo to different injuries for varying lengths of time. Add that trio to a list that already included Moises Alou and Orlando Hernandez and the team's medical outlook is understandably bleak. Make no mistake: the Mets are a very old team. Age isn't always a bad thing, though. I'm all about youth and giving the kids a chance to play, but the Red Sox fielded one of the oldest teams in baseball last year and things worked out for them. That's one year and one very good team, but the point is that just because your roster may be long in the tooth doesn't mean that they can't also be long in the win column.

Aside from health, my biggest concern -- at least among those things that weren't already concerns -- is Aaron Heilman, who has been terrific for the past two seasons and is suddenly shaky at best. Willie Randolph has brought Heilman into the last two games in close situations where the Mets were narrowly losing and Heilman was unable to keep those games within reach. His control on Tuesday was particularly discouraging, so let's hope that this is just a blip and not a full-blown kablooie.

Anyway, six games into the season isn't the time to over-dramatize things. Let's just take a few deep breaths, try to relax, and hope the Mets go out there tonight and not suck so badly, mmmkay? It may not be time to panic, but if the Mets lose the next two games I might just throw myself off a bridge.