Pedro!

A lot can happen in four days. For four days last week it seemed like the Mets would never win another baseball game. The last four days have given reason to reevaluate that assessment.

First there was a shocking three-game sweep of the Braves at Turner Field, not a place where the Mets have played particularly well over the years. The offense, starting pitching and bullpen all performed more consistently than in the Philadelphia series, with the Mets outscoring the Braves 15-4 in the series. John Maine had his best start in a month, Mike Pelfrey had his best major league start ever and Tom Glavine continued his solid second half. The bullpen had the most surprising weekend, giving up just one run in eight innings.

While a sweep of the Braves in Atlanta was satisfying, especially in light of what came before it, nothing could top what happened on Monday. Pedro Martinez made his first major league start in eleventh months and looked quite capable of helping this team through September in beyond. He threw just 76 pitches by design, 47 of them for strikes, and lasted five innings. He allowed three runs, two earned, on five hits and three walks, one intentional. The Mets did not play good defense behind him, but he struck out four, including the 3,000th of his career, and pitched out of trouble more than once. As promising as the results was the way he did it. His fastball was in the low eighties in the first inning, but by the fifth he was consistently at 88 and 89 MPH, even hitting 90 once. If he can put his pitches where he wants to, he won't need any more velocity than that. Of course we'll need to see more than one start before we anoint Pedro World Series MVP, but start number one was very encouraging. Last year the Mets were scrambling to come up with starting pitchers in the playoffs. This year they may find themselves deciding whether Maine or Oliver Perez heads to the postseason bullpen.

Those two will take the hill for the Mets (77-60) in the final games of this series against the Reds (62-76). Perez (12-9, 3.39) will take on Matt Belisle (7-8, 5.33) on Tuesday night and Maine (14-8, 3.57) will face rookie Tom Shearn (1-0, 4.76) on Wednesday afternoon. Thanks to the Phillies losing three of four, the Mets' division lead is back up to five games. Now they'll try to win five straight for the first time all season. With Pedro back in uniform, anything seems possible.