So, How Good are the Mets?

The Mets are better than I expected. This is not the year for me to get that bittersweet experience of rooting for a dreadful team. But I still feel pessimistic about them. They really went someplace in June, but overall...they’re not going anywhere.

The Mets are in second place, playing .553 ball. Although you have to worry about Santana and Pelfrey, the starting core seems much better than the Mets opened the season with. The Mets were hot in June, but chances are, the June record did not reveal the team’s strength. Baseball teams can get hot for a single month. I remember the Mets doing that in a season that saw them barely play .500 ball; yet for all of May, they crushed every opponent.

David Wright is fantastic right now, and I am sure he will have a fine season. But he is a STREAK hitter, and so we can expect some bad streaks, during which he won’t help the team much. The hitting is inconsistent right now, possibly due to the fact that the Mets have to face some very good pitchers, pretty often. This team does not know how to attack a fine pitcher; maybe they will learn.

The Mets' current weakness is a truly poor relief core. Even their closer is unreliable at the moment. (Maybe this is just a bad spot for K-Rod, but he does not seem to be overpowering enough.) When the season started, the relief pitchers seemed great, and now they don’t. To me, this suggests an obvious summary: The Mets’ hitters, starters and relievers are better than average, but only to the extent that they all have to be at their best for the Mets to play .580 ball. All season, these three groups will take turns holding the team back. It’s going to be frustrating to watch the Mets chase after the league leaders.