Roger who?

A week ago, the Mets held a half-game lead over second place Atlanta in the National League's Eastern Division. A tumultuous week in which the Mets went four and three against the Marlins and Diamondbacks only served to reduce that margin by half a game. Now some health concerns leave the Mets' shared spot atop the heap as tenuous as it's been in a while.

Orlando Hernandez and Jose Valentin hit the disabled list this week and the results from their replacements have been mixed. Chan Ho Park had an awful start in which he allowed seven runs in four innings on Monday, though with a little help from his defense his line would have been a lot less ugly. Nevertheless, he was quickly returned to AAA New Orleans in favor of Jorge Sosa, who pitched a solid six and one-third innings on Saturday, charged with just two runs on four hits and two walks. Neither Damion Easley nor Ruben Gotay did much hitting out of the second base position, though one of Easley's two hits this week was a home run that keyed Thursday's ninth inning comeback win. Easley probably isn't going to be as bad as this two-for-twenty week might indicate but then Sosa probably probably won't be as good as his first start for much longer either.

Fortunately, even without El Duque the Mets' pitching staff has some room for error thanks to three guys pitching well and one guy sort of getting by. Tom Glavine had his worst start of the season on Thursday, giving up four runs in six innings in a game the Mets wound up winning anyway, but overall he is 3-1 with a 3.27 ERA in 41.1 innings. Oliver Perez continued to put memories of his disastrous second start behind him with an electrifying performance on Wednesday. He gave up three runs in five and two-thirds innings, but two of those runs were the direct result of an error by David Wright on a play that should have ended the sixth inning. Had Wright caught Joe Borchard's line drive, Perez would have finished the sixth inning with just one run allowed on three hits and three walks with ten strikeouts. As it is, he's got a 3.41 ERA with 36 Ks and 10 walks in 29 innings.

Of course, neither Glavine nor Perez quite compares to John Maine, who gave up one run in six innings this week and saw his ERA go up as a result. His 1.37 mark is still fairly comfortably the best in the majors. Maine's certainly had some luck on his side as far as balls in play finding the gloves of his teammates with a batting average on balls in play of .232 compared to a league average of .299. But he's also striking out more batters than he ever has in the majors at 8.5 per nine innings. He's also walking more than ever at 4.1 per nine, but he's cut that down significantly in his last three starts, allowing just six free passes in 21.2 innings. Maine is probably not going to keep his ERA under two all year nor even contend for a Cy Young Award, but I think the questions about whether he can be a solid major league starter can be put to rest for a while.

The same cannot be said of Mike Pelfrey, who had another difficult week. The twenty-three year old gave up six runs in 11.2 innings over two starts this week, which looks a bit like progress. If Pelfrey could give the Mets an ERA around four and a half this year, he'd be a perfectly adequate fifth starter. Unfortunately, the way he pitched in these two starts makes him unlikely to maintain even that modest level of success. He gave up eight hits and seven walks and struck out just four. He also hit three batters. His apparent strategy of "pitching to contact" to generate ground balls is just not going to work for very long if he keeps putting this many runners on base. There's no reason he can't still have a very bright future, but if he doesn't start showing some improvement soon he will likely need to spend some quality time in AAA.

The Mets (19-11) head to San Francisco next to take on the Giants (16-13). The Mets will come out firing with the cream of their pitching crop--Perez, Glavine and Maine. The Giants will respond more or less in kind with Barry Zito (2-3, 3.52), Matt Cain (1-2, 3.08) and Matt Morris (4-1. 3.20). Former Giant Moises Alou missed the last three games in Arizona with a swollen keen, so who knows if he'll be back to take on his old team? As for Barry Bonds, he's hit .325/.433/.563 in 80 at bats in his career against Glavine, but he's just one for seven with three walks against Perez and has never faced Maine.