New World Emerging Blues

After a disappointing homestand in which they won just three of six from the Dodgers and Padres, things have only gotten worse on the road for the Mets. Monday's 9-2 loss was neither surprising nor disappointing given than Brian Lawrence was the Mets' starting pitcher. Lawrence has been an adequate short-term fifth starter, but there was never any reason to expect much from him against a good offensive team in a good offensive park.

Tuesday's 4-2 loss in ten innings was a lot more troubling. First of all, the Mets scored just two runs in a game started by Adam Eaton. Only three Mets had a hit in this game and one of them was Tom Glavine. Glavine, Moises Alou and Carlos Delgado did each have two hits, including a Delgado home run that accounted for both runs, but the top four hitters in the lineup went hitless in sixteen at bats. The recently hot New York offense has scored just six runs in its last three games and fifteen in its last five.

Then there's the bullpen. Over the last eight games, the only Mets relievers with ERAs under six are Aaron Sele, who's pitched two scoreless innings, and Aaron Heilman, who's given up six hits and a walk in his last three and one-third innings and allowed an inherited runner to score the tying run in Tuesday's game. It seems no one in the Mets' pen can be trusted right now as even Billy Wagner appeared mortal this week, blowing one save and one tie game. And of course, Willie Randolph's bullpen management has not helped matters. On Tuesday he used Guillermo Mota in the bottom of the ninth inning of a tie game and got away with it only to tempt fate and send him out to pitch to Ryan Howard in the tenth. As the inevitable walk-off home run sailed the hundred or so feet it takes to reach the fence in Citizen's Bank Park, one couldn't help but wonder where Wagner was, or why Scott Schoeneweis is even on the team if someone like Mota is going to pitch to one of the best lefties in the league in extra innings.

The Mets still have a four-game lead in the NL East and favorable pitching matchups in the final two games of this series with Oliver Perez (12-8, 3.34) and Orlando Hernandez (9-4, 3.07) taking on Jamie Moyer (11-10, 5.16) and Kyle Lohse (7-12, 4.47), respectively. But neither Perez nor El Duque is likely to pitch a complete game and the Mets' offense seems incapable of building a big enough lead for their bullpen to protect right now. The Mets still have a much easier road to a division title than the Phillies, but they're going to have to play better than they have the last week to reach its end.