Marlins 6, Mets 5 (46-46, 3 GB)

Absolutely horrible. This is an absolutely horrible loss for the Mets. Scott Erickson pitched great. He definitely pitched well enough to win. Ugly defense combined with some poor relief cost the Mets. What a way to ruin July 19th, aka "Mike DeJean Day".

So I guess I'll start with DeJean. The Mets finally traded Karim Garcia, to the Orioles, for the reliever. (I should be so happy right now, but instead, I'm so sad.) DeJean's numbers, to put it bluntly, suck. I'd like to think Rick Peterson can work with him to improve those numbers, but I just don't know. Peterson has done wonders with the Mets' starting pitching, but it seems like it comes at the cost of the relief corps. So the other hope with DeJean is that he performs better in the National League than he fared in the American League.

Now to the game. A 4-0 lead!! The Mets blew a 4-0 lead! Here were the encouraging aspects of the game. Mike Piazza seems to have found his stroke. He hit the ball on the nose a couple of times. "The Greatest Ballplayer Who Ever Lived" Jose Reyes had one of his best games since he's been healthy. He also is playing very well in the field. And Erickson, again, looked great. Maybe he'll feed off the fact that he's playing important games and continue to pitch well.

Unfortunately, there won't be many more important games at this rate. The bullpen inherited a 4-2 lead, and blew it. Vance Wilson looked like crap behind the plate. I don't know what was going on with the catchers last night, but there were more balls going to the backstop than you see on the pee-wee fields at I.C.Y.P. (My little league.)

I don't want people pointing fingers at Art Howe for this one either. The man takes enough crap from enough people (including my mom). He couldn't leave Erickson in much longer - the man hasn't pitched a major league game in years. He pushed all the necessary buttons - the players just didn't come through for him. The one move which probably raised the most eyebrows - when he brought in John Franco - turned out to be one of the best moves all night. The bullpen has had its share of shining moments this year...but it needs to be perfect if the Mets are going anywhere.

If I were a betting man...wait, I am a betting man.... If I could legally bet on a baseball game in the next 24 hours, I would bet a lot of money on the Mets winning Tuesday night's game. They won't lose two in a row at home to the Marlins. The big problem, though, is that the Mets should have won two in a row at home against the Marlins.

The Braves are playing the Phillies, and beat them on Tuesday night, so for now, the Mets are chasing Atlanta, and they're tied for third with the Marlins, 3 games back.

WRIGHT WATCH: Sorry, forgot about the Wright Watch yesterday. The Tides were off on Monday, and maybe that's a good thing for everyone's phavorite phenom, David Wright. Wright's been slumping. He went 2-for-4 in his last game, Sunday, and is hitting .308. But he's just 4 for his last 17...2 for his last 12.

Mets 6, Phillies 1 (46-45, 2 GB)

A couple of good wins bookend a couple of pretty bad losses this weekend. No ground gained, no ground lost. It wasn't a bad split, but it wasn't good. All of this points to a very average team.

I keep saying beginning tonight...beginning with this game....beginning now...but I think I (we) have to stop thinking that way. Starting with these next two games with the Marlins, the Mets have to put together a bunch of wins. It's just two games, but the Mets can help bury Florida by winning both. If Scott Erickson can actually make it through his pre-game warmups, he'd better pitch well. I have nothing against Erickson (except his wife is the worst sideline reporter of all time), I just don't think he's bringing any value to the team. Monday night he gets to prove me wrong.

Actually, Scott Erickson might be bringing a very good thing to the team - the trade of Karim Garcia. I can't believe this is actually going to happen. I just kind of threw it out there last week, that the Mets would make a trade to create the roster spot for Erickson. The fact that it's Karim Garcia makes one of two dreams I've had for this season come true (the other being the World Series win). The deal is, the Mets had a trade worked out to send Garcia to Los Angeles, but the Dodgers backed out. But there are still teams interested, so a trade could happen by Monday, when Erickson gets activated.

So, anyway, I digress. I missed Saturday's game, but apparently it was one of the worst performances of the season by the team. Friday night's loss wasn't pretty either. Hopefully the momentum from Sunday's win carries into these two games with the Marlins, because the Mets can't keep hovering at .500. They need to go on a run, and it needs to begin now.

Reds 2, Mets 0 (37-39, 3 GB)

Wednesday, June 30, 2004

Again, due to the overlapping week of work and class, I only saw the last couple of innings of last night's loss. I can't really comment on the game, because I didn't see much of what happened. But again, Tom Glavine gets a tough loss. He's 7-5 on the year. That's just awful...and not fair. The good news, though, is that both the Marlins and Phillies lost, so the Mets stay 3 games out.

The Mets went 13-13 in the month of June. That means the johnnymets guarantee from last month is wrong. After saying the Mets went 15-12 in May, and should have an easier time against weaker opposition in June, I wrote:

"Of course, the Mets being the Mets, they're not going to dominate these teams like they should. But it's safe to say the Mets should win more games in June than they did in May. That's a johnnymets guarantee."

Oops. But I'm owning up to it, because I want to brag about being the one who predicted the Mets will win the World Series when they do that in October. Gotta take the bad with the good.

The problem with the 13-13 in June, though, is that the Mets need to do better than that to compete (they went 9-12 in April, 15-12 in May). And the schedule only gets tougher from now on. July is made up mostly of NL East opponents (plus this weekend's series against the Yankees). It's contender or pretender time for the Mets.

WRIGHT WATCH: Wright went 2-for-4 with a strikeout, and he stole his second Triple-A base. He's hitting .373. There's a big write-up on Wright (wright-up?) in today's Daily News. It talks about his relationship with Ty Wigginton, and talks about where Wigginton might be traded to. It also says that Mets officials say Wright won't be up with the Mets until after the All-Star break. (Yesterday WFAN rumored he might be up on Monday.)

Also in yesterday's Norfolk game, Scott Erickson went seven and two-thirds scoreless innings - his first good start for the Tides in some time. I hope that doesn't encourage the Mets to bring up Erickson anytime soon - he's not the answer.

Finally, I forgot to write this yesterday...but maybe some of you remembered. Last night on AMC (American Movie Classics) was the new show "Into Character", in which my brother and his friend were made into the Blues Brothers. It was really great, and funny. If you get the chance to catch a rerun of it on AMC, watch it - it's worth it. The only rerun I can find right now is 5:25am next Wednesday. Hopefully there'll be another one, at a more normal time. Otherwise, we have many tapes of it.