On paper this game looks like a terrible mismatch: Journeyman scrub Nelson Figueroa against first-ballot HOF-er John Smoltz (or, if you're Ron Darling, "Schmoltz"). In reality, it may be even worse. The Mets can probably count on getting zero production from their 6-through-9 hitters Delgado-Casanova-Chavez-Figueroa, and David Wright has been particularly woeful in his recent confrontations with Smoltz, flailing away uselessly like some rather ordinary hitter and not the handsome young go-getter that he is.
Despite all that has gone wrong this season -- injuries, head-scratching in-game management, everything Carlos Delgado has done -- the Mets are 12-11, one game over .500 and a game-and-a-half behind the upstart Marlins. If they can somehow win today they will go to 13-11 and drop the Braves to 12-13. But that probably won't happen.