Tom Seaver Fan Club

Now this is the way things are supposed to work.  The Mets swept the Athletics in impressive fashion and then they took care of the Cardinals in a 2-1, eleven inning pitcher’s duel.  The end result is, as of 11:30 EDT, the Mets have a 3 1/2 game lead over the Phillies (yeah, the Phillies passed the Braves).

Mets pitchers gave up just three runs in their three game series against the Athletics.  The most impressive outing was the 1-0 win on Saturday with Orlando Hernandez throwing seven shutout frames.  The lone run of the game came on an RBI double by the still hot David Wright.  He hasn’t hit a homerun in a while, and his seven game hitting streak ended tonight but he’s put together some nice games in this most recent four game winning streak.

Tonight, it was Jorge Sosa who had an impressive start.  He gave up just one run on six hits and two walks with five strikeouts in six innings.  The game winner was a walk off solo homerun by Shawn Green in the bottom of the eleventh.  In all, the Mets managed just three hits in eleven innings yet they still won the game.

Tomorrow it’ll be Oliver Perez going up against Todd Wellemeyer.  Perez has dropped three of his last four but in only one of those starts has he been horrible.  One odd thing about Perez is, he’s almost always gotten a decision one way or the other.  He’s 7-6 and it’s in only 14 starts.

Three wins.  That’s all the Mets have in June so far and when you put it along side the twelve losses, you wonder how the Mets have stayed on top of the pack.  The Phillies, who were way back at one point have now pulled to within two games and even the Nationals of all teams sit just eight games back of the Mets.  Still, the Braves haven’t capitalized so the Mets remain in first and all it’ll take is a nice run to give the Mets another cushion.

One of the problems has been the hitting.  After a team OPS of .809 in April and .752 in May, the Mets are now down to just a .681 OPS in June.  That equates to an 81 OPS+, which isn’t going to cut it for a first place team.  And then the pitching has been downright awful.  Heading into yesterday’s game, the team ERA was 5.41 in June.  So I guess when the pitching and the hitting tank at the same time, you expect the team to play poorly.  I just didn’t expect the Mets to have a stretch like they have.  It almost seems like someone pushed an off button on June 1.

One encouraging sign is that David Wright is finally starting to heat up.  After a rough April, he put together some nice numbers in May and now he’s simply on fire.  He leads the team with twelve homeruns and he’s right behind Carlos Delgado with 37 RBIs.

Oddly, Jorge Sosa has two of the Mets three wins this month and he’s been a pleasant surprise.  He’s now 6-2 and if he can keep it up, he’ll give the Mets a nice option as a fourth starter (fifth once Pedro comes back).  It’s funny how the Mets rotation looked full of holes but with Sosa and Oliver Perez stepping it up, the starting rotation has definitely held their own.

The Mets play the Twins beginning tonight in another three game interleague series.  It’ll be John Maine going up against Carlos Silva in the opener.  Silva’s been mediocre so this would be a good game to get those bats going again.

Don’t look too much into the Mets’ series loss to the Diamondbacks.  I’m not sure if their hitters just checked out or what, but you’re not going to see the Mets scored just a single run too often, much less twice in the same series.  The Carlos Beltran injury might have a little to do with it though. 

The good news is, the Mets have a nice four game lead over the Braves now and their 35-20 is good for best in the National League.  And even better, this week the Mets have a chance to bury the Phillies, who have been hovering around .500 since they bounced back from the horrendous start.  I like the pitching matchups in the first two games so if the Mets can get some hitting going against Hamels in the finale, you could be looking at a sweep. 

Carlos Delgado’s power surge has been nice, but he’s still sporting a .685 OPS, which isn’t going to cut it.  It’s nice to see the big guy heating up though. 

It’s two old men tonight with Jamie Moyer throwing against Tom Glavine.  Like I said earlier, I like our chances in this one.