- Santana has now given up 3 grand slams this year - before this year he had given up 2 in his career. Wow. With each start it becomes more and more clear that Johan is no longer an elite pitcher, but merely a very good one. That's not a bad thing, except he's owed $97 million over the 2011-2014 season (although the Mets do hold a $5.5M buyout option on 2014). At this point, I'm pretty firm in my belief that the Mets will need to add a Cliff Lee or Roy Oswalt at the deadline to win a playoff series - more on that tomorrow. Santana/Pelfrey is just not a strong enough 1/2 punch right now.
- Interesting note - the Mets have gone 13-4 in the month of June, and their starting pitchers have only 3 losses this month. Santana has 2 of those losses, and Pelfrey has the other.
- With a 3-3 split, the Mets and Yankees have now split 6 of the 14 interleague series. The Yankees have also won 6, and the Mets have won twice. Of course, the only series that really mattered, in 2000, was an easy Yankees win.
- No idea what to do with Tatis - he is clearly floundering at the plate right now. Minaya has done yet again a terrible job of providing this team with depth. Their bench is among the weakest in major league baseball, and there isn't really anyone on the bench who strikes opposing teams as a threat right now. Carter can only hit righties (and mediocre at that at best), Tatis can't hit, period, the Other Feliciano does not belong in the major leagues, and well, Alex Cora is arguably the worst offensive player in the major leagues. Is it time to call Jermaine Dye and see if he'd be willing to play once a week for the Mets? I'm sure he could learn to play a little 1B and spell Ike as well. What about Joe Crede to be a pinch hitter/OF/3B/1B backup? Those guys CAN'T be worse than what Omar has provided Jerry with.
- Jose Reyes hit 2 HR on Sunday, and he's now hitting .322 for the month with 4 HR and 7 RBI while posting a .950 OPS. However, underlying those standard numbers is an extremely low 10.2% line drive rate, and number which needs to prop back up for Jose to continue this success. His HR/FB rate has jumped to 18.2% this month (vs. his career 6.2% rate), and his pop up rate has shrunk to a miniscule 4.5%, compared to his career 11.7% rate. Tough to credit all of his June success to luck, but the outliers suggest his been more lucky than good this month. Would be nice to see that line drive number get closer to normal in July.
- Jason Bay, David Wright, and Ike Davis combined for 5 hits over the 3 games. There's just no chance the Mets are going to beat teams of high quality like the Yankees with that production from the 3-4-5 positions. I'll give Davis and Wright a break here, but Bay is just terrible at the plate right now. He's been sneaking in a few more hits of late, but I don't think he ever feels confident at the plate, and I doubt the opposing teams fear him right now. Certainly not playing up to his contract, as we've constantly discussed here.
- Very little question anymore about who the best pitcher in New York is. The real question now is if Phil Hughes is #2, and if he's not, is Pelfrey, or is Johan. I'm not even gonna go there.
Tomorrow we'll take a look at the Mets approach to the trade market, and especially pitching, in the next month or so. The Mets will return home to Citi Field on Tuesday to host the Detroit Tigers, with the red-hot Jon Niese taking on Tigers ace Justin Verlander. The way the Mets respond from this weekend's thumping against the Yanks will go a long way towards telling how the rest of this season will play out; will it give us reasons to celebrate, or reasons to lament that being a Met fan sucks?
