Alex Cora: 3-for-4
Everyone else: 3-for-28

And the only run was driven in by pitcher Fernando Nieve, whose bat was just a little better than his arm today. Nieve allowed four runs on six hits and six walks (!) in 5.2 innings in what might be his last start (though Tim Redding will be moved to the bullpen to make room for Oliver Perez). Though they may be reluctant to go with three lefties in the starting rotation, the Mets really have to consider dumping Nieve in favor of Jon Niese, who had a 2.94 ERA in 42.2 June innings, walking few and keeping the ball on the ground and in the park.

The Mets would've needed Steve Nebraska to win this afternoon with the way their offense flopped against Jamie Moyer and his 6.06 tRA. Moyer threw a ton of strikes and got plenty of groundballs, and the Mets struggled all day long trying to get anything going. The bottom of the order combined to plate the team's lone run in the fifth, but otherwise the offense mustered nothing of any consequence against Moyer and three relievers.

Meanwhile, Jimmy Rollins, who apparently hits nobody but the Mets, reached base three times and knocked in a pair while Shane Victorino picked up an RBI and three hits of his own. Chase Utley and Ryan Howard went just 1-for-7 with a walk (Howard saw only seven pitches in his four at-bats; Nick Evans saw 25 in his), but it didn't matter because the damage was done by the top of the order.

Johan Santana -- hopefully the good one -- takes the mound on Sunday afternoon against Joe Blanton as the Mets look to crawl back to within three games of the Phillies.

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A Tale Of Two Pitchers

It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times.

Rodrigo Lopez last pitched a big league game on July 26, 2007 with the Rockies. Rodrigo Lopez allowed just two runs on six hits and a walk against the Mets on Friday night. Rodrigo Lopez kept the Mets off-balance and gave his team a good chance to win the game.

Livan Hernandez has started more games and thrown more innings than anyone in baseball since 2000. Livan Hernandez allowed seven runs on ten hits and four walks in three innings against the Phillies on Friday night. Livan Hernandez gave the Mets and their woeful offense almost no chance to win the game.

[end scene]

Pat Misch, Bobby Parnell and Elmer Dessens threw five scoreless innings, allowing just one hit and one walk and throwing just 64 pitches in the process. Hernandez took 81 pitches to finish three innings. Hernandez's game score was 9! He started with 50! He was 41 points worse than if he had done nothing at all! How many consecutive sentences can I end with exclamation points?!

Here's a quick game: which of these players would you prefer to have starting at second base:

Player A: .331 wOBA in 2009, 1,525 career games at second base
Player B: .319 wOBA in 2009, 3 career games at second base

I defended the Fernando Tatis signing before the season, but he's been nothing short of terrible for the Mets this year, regardless of position. The best thing I could say about the Luis Castillo contract was that it was better than having David Eckstein for four years, but the Mets are stuck with him for now and he hasn't been awful this year. Unless there's an injury we don't know about there's simply no excuse for playing Tatis, a lousy defensive outfielder and, right now, a worse hitter than Castillo, at second base. Ever.

Swag Contest

Swag contest results can be found here and the next game's swag form already available. You can read more about the swag contest here.

SB Nation Coverage

* Traditional Recap
* Boxscore
* Amazin' Avenue Gamethread
* The Good Phight Gamethread

Win Probability Added

Big winners: Brian Schneider, +4.0% WPA, Pat Misch, +1.8% WPA
Big losers: Livan Hernandez, -34.9% WPA, Alex Cora, -5.9% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Werth strikeout to end first, +5.2% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: Dobbs two-run single in first, -9.8% WPA
Total pitcher WPA: -32.6% WPA
Total batter WPA: -17.4% WPA
GWRBI!: Greg Dobbs

Game Thread Roll Call

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

This game was just grission to the max. Tim Redding was terrible as usual, but the Mets' offense was explosive, unlike usual. Francisco Rodriguez was awful, unlike usual. Fernando Tatis and Ryan Church were heroes, also unlike usual.

1.5 games back pending tonight's Phillies/Braves game. The Mets could head to Philadelphia Friday night just a game back of the Phillies (and the Marlins), though at worst they'll be two games behind.

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It's funny: Jerry Manuel indicated last night that David Wright would probably have the day off today. I thought it was silly, arguing instead that Wright should be rested on Thursday against an inferior (to the Brewers, anyway) Pirates team. Much to my surprise -- and delight -- I see Manuel's lineup today and Wright is in there in the three-hole. Of course, Wright goes and has a terrible day, going 0-for-4 and striking out three more times. And then the Mets go ahead and win the game anyway.

Wright wasn't alone in his offensive futility this afternoon, as Yovani Gallardo made their whole lineup look foolish for most of the day. He struck out twelve Mets in seven innings and allowed just five hits along the way. Two of those hits combined to plate the only run of the game in the sixth inning. Luis Castillo lead off with a ground-rule double and Ryan Church -- following a Wright strikeout -- knocked Castillo in with a single to center. Not particularly sexy, but the Mets'll take their runs where they can get 'em.

Mike Pelfrey was the star of the show, though, as he shut down the Brewers over 7.2 innings, allowing just six hits and two walks while striking out six. He recorded eleven groundball outs to just five in the air, a very good indicator that his sinker was working well. He must have liked his slider today, as he threw it more often (20.5%) than usual (13.0% this season). It's no surprise that a good breaking ball led to good overall results, particularly in the strikeout department, as the six whiffs tied his season high. Further, his swinging strike rate (8.4%) was well above his season mark of 5.1%. It's amazing what having a solid second offering can do for your performance.

The Mets play a makeup game tomorrow afternoon (12:35pm EDT) in Pittsburgh before heading to Philadelphia for an important three-game series with the NL East-leading Phillies.

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Five straight losses. Fortunately the Phillies lost to the Braves in extra innings so the Mets remain three games out. Though I was once hopeful that they might be able to stay in contention with this set of guys I have become less and less sanguine over the course of the past week. Not surprising, considering the way the Mets have played. You're never as bad as your worst days and never as good as your best; the Mets may be banged up and oftentimes managerially inept, but they're not this bad.

The Mets wrap up their series with the Brewers on Wednesday afternoon before heading to Pittsburgh for a makeup game.

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Re-grission to the mean finally caught up and took a nasty swing -- along with basically everyone on the Brewers -- at Fernando Nieve tonight in Milwaukee. After allowing just eleven hits in his first 20.2 innings -- leading to three victories -- Nieve was lit up for another eleven hits, this time in just 3.1 innings. He only allowed three runs, though, so some imbecile might have you believe that he "gutted" his way through the jams, or that he "dug deep", "bore down" or "pitched to his defense". In reality, he "was just plain awful", he "sucked big time" and "embarrassed himself and his whole family". He had the good fortune of pitching in front of Daniel Murphy's glove and had the good sense to be relieved by Elmer Dessens, who was likewise grateful for Ryan Church's arm and Brewers' third base coach Brad Fischer, who sent Braden Looper scampering for home on an ill-advised sacrifice fly attempt with one out and Prince Fielder on deck.

Nieve's terrible performance was beside the point, because neither Brian Stokes, Pat Misch nor Bobby Parnell fared any better. ERA is a stupid, flawed stat, but how can you expect to win when the four relievers to use in a game have these ERAs:

4.50
4.15
5.87
5.22

And [cue Seinfeld impression] What's the deal with the Mets' lineup? Who are the ad wizards that came up with this one? Two of the Mets' three worst hitters were given more plate appearances than anyone else. Meanwhile, Luis Castillo and Brian Schneider were batting eighth and seventh, respectively. I realize everyone hates Castillo but the guy is getting on-base better than any starter not named Wright or Sheffield. If you want to bat him eighth when Jose Reyes is healthily batting leadoff, fine. But when you've got this skeleton crew out there every day how can you fill out a lineup card with Argenis Reyes's name at the top and Castillo's name at the bottom and not say to yourself, "Nah, dog, that's just retarded."

And what's with swapping out Castillo for Fernando Tatis when Dessens relieved Nieve? I get that you want a few innings from Dessens and the pitcher's spot is due up next, but Castillo is one of the more useful offensive players on this team right now. Why not sub Jeremy Reed in for Fernando Martinez? Sure, Reed is terrible, but so is Martinez right now, and certainly worse than Reed.

We've talked about this before and I know I probably sound like a broken record at this point, but when your team has this many deficiencies you really do have to squeeze as much juice as possible out of things like lineup construction and effective double-switching. Jerry Manuel failed on both counts tonight.

Swag Contest

Swag contest results can be found here and the next game's swag form already available. You can read more about the swag contest here.

SB Nation Coverage

* Traditional Recap
* Boxscore
* Amazin' Avenue Gamethread
* Brew Crew Ball Gamethread

Win Probability Added

Big winners: Brian Schneider, +14.0% WPA, Elmer Dessens, +9.0% WPA
Big losers: Brian Stokes, -22.8% WPA< Fernando Nieve, -18.4% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Schneider two-run double in sixth, +17.5% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: McGehee grand slam in sixth, -21.3% WPA
Total pitcher WPA: -33.9% WPA
Total batter WPA: -16.1% WPA
GWRBI!: Casey McGehee

Game Thread Roll Call

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

Three games, three runs, nine total hits. The Yankees entered Sunday night's game with the 23rd best ERA in baseball, but they shut down the Mets' Quadruple-A lineup in each game of this series. The story for the Mets continues to be the absence of three of their four best hitters, with none even on the verge of returning to action. I forget which member of ESPN's baseball broadcasting Axis of Evil mentioned this during the telecast, but if you took away three of the four best hitters from any team in the league you'd be left with something resembling a pathetic, dried-up husk. Let's say David Wright is the Mets's best hitter (it might actually be Carlos Beltran, but let's just make things easy). Here's who each of the National League's best teams -- by record -- would have to forfeit if they suffered injuries similar to the Mets. Since this is quick-and-dirty, I just took the top-four players by 2009 OPS.

• Phillies: Chase Utley, Ryan Howard, Jayson Werth, (Raul Ibanez, owner of the Phillies' best OPS, is actually hurt).
• Dodgers: Matt Kemp, Andre Ethier, Orlando Hudson
• Brewers: Ryan Braun, Rickie Weeks, Mike Cameron
• Cardinals: Skip Schumaker, Colby Rasmus, Brendan Ryan (bleah, their lineup is terrible)
• Giants: Aaron Rowand, Fred Lewis, Travis Ishikawa (almost as bad as St. Louis)
• Marlins: Cody Ross, Dan Uggla, Jorge Cantu

For kicks, here are the Yankees and Red Sox:

• Yankees: Johnny Damon, Nick Swisher, Jorge Posada
• Red Sox: Jason Bay, J.D. Drew, Jason Varitek

All of these teams would be knee-deep in guano if they lost what the Mets have, and we haven't even gotten into the pitching staff.

What's that? The game? Omir Santos is terrible and Francisco Rodriguez issued a bases-loaded walk -- his third free pass of the inning -- to Mariano Rivera, giving the Yankees a ninth-inning insurance run and their legendary closer his first career RBI. Need more? Traditional recap link after the jump. The Mets are back to .500, 2.5 games back of the Phillies, and they head to Milwaukee for a three-game series with the Brewers.

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If you thought -- like me -- that things couldn't get any worse than Friday Night, allow me to introduce you to this smarmy douchebag who calls himself Saturday Night. For the third time in four games the Mets did practically nothing at the plate; this time around it was against A.J. Burnett, who came within an Alex Cora single of earning his second career no-hitter. The Mets managed three walks and whiffed ten times against the nasty -- but wild -- Burnett, who dominated the Mets like no pitcher has since at least, oh, Friday-ish. The ten strikeouts were a season-high for Burnett.

For the Mets, Redding was roughed up by an admittedly awesome Yankees lineup, who pounded out six hits -- including homeruns by Nick Swisher and Jorge Posada -- in plating five runs in 5.1 innings against the Mets' starter. The Mets' patience with Redding is undoubtedly wearing thin; the Mets' fifth fourth starter has had exactly two good starts, one decent start and now five bad-to-awful starters. If he keeps this up, the Mets will either have to:

1. Call up somebody else, like Jon Niese or Brandon Knight
2. Trade for someone (<--- could be disastrous)
3. Hope really hard that John Maine or Oliver Perez comes back soon

Perez makes a rehab start with Brooklyn on Sunday and could return to the Mets within a couple of weeks, I'm guessing. Maine, not so much. Has it come to this: openly wishing for Perez to get healthy quickly? I feel dirty.

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