Status of the Mets (May 12, 2010):

As the Mets fight for first place, let’s remember that they had another losing road trip. Road trips are going to define their abilities this year. I’m not worried about Mike Pelfrey. I expect him to be a good (but not near-perfect) pitcher.

Forget Beltran. When he does finally return, he will be older, less powerful, and soon injured again. It’s a shame.

David Wright has remembered that he does not have to swing for the fences on the first two pitches. He even had a good hitting streak. Eventually, he’ll be fine. Geez, I hope so.

At first, I thought that Johan Santana was hiding an injury. Or maybe, he had adopted a bad habit that was weakening his pitches. But the Mets have decided he was “tipping” his pitches. You could tell whether he was about to throw a fastball or a changeup. That’s really bad, since the goal of these pitches is to upset the batter’s timing. I’m not sure that this is the entire Johan story, though. It appears that he always tipped these pitches; he has just gotten more obvious about it. I worry that his fastball is too easy to hit because he has lost some ball motion, and there is still a bad pitching habit to be found, to restore his ability.

Ike Davis is going to be something! Unless...unless...the league figures him out. Some rookies die in the dust once a pitcher finds his batting weakness, and word gets around.