Mets Week Thirteen: Seriously, enough with the interleague play already

I'll just say it's a good thing the playoffs don't start this week, even if that would mean the Yankees not making it. The Mets went on the road to face the class of the AL East and wound up doing their best impression of the entire history of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays franchise. They lost five out of six games and most of them by wide margins. If the front office wasn't constantly searching for some decent starting pitching, they had better be now. I hear Jeff Weaver's available.

Alay Soler, who had often looked to me like the third best starter on this team, had an absolutely disastrous week. Limaesque, you might call it. Two starts. Seven innings. Seventeen hits. Six walks. Four home runs. Sixteen runs. Zero strikeouts. With John Maine healthy and pitching adequately in Norfolk, Soler may not be long for this rotation.

Steve Trachsel and Orlando Hernandez actually had the two most effective starts of the week, though only Trachsel was able to win a game. Each allowed just two runs against the Yankees with Trachsel pitching six innings and Hernandez seven. Still, both men have been quite inconsistent and each has an ERA just south of five. I think the Mets are going to have to do better that these guys if they're going to go deep into the playoffs.

In happier news, six Mets were named to the All-Star Game on Sunday. David Wright, Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran and Paul Lo Duca will all start for the NL and Tom Glavine and Pedro Martinez were chosen for the pitching staff. Billy Wagner is also on the ballot for the fan-selected final spot, though I think Nomar Garciaparra deserves it more. Lo Duca isn't one of the five best catchers in the NL and doesn't really belong in this game and I would be pretty surprised if Pedro even went, let alone pitched, especially now that he's missing a start tonight due to a sore hip. But it will still be fun to see all those Mets in the lineup given that they may actually have some stake in the outcome.

Also, congratulations to that kid from Tampa Bay who made the AL squad. I think he might have a future in this game.

Even with Pedro missing tonight's start, things will get a little easier for the Mets. They'll begin a four-game series with the worst team in the National League, the Pittsburgh Pirates. Then they'll finish off the first half with four games against the Marlins, who have somehow climbed all the way to third place in the East.