Well who saw that coming?

I can’t believe the Mets have  just won six in a row and might be in first place when I wake up tomorrow morning.  A week ago this team looked like absolute garbage.  And somehow right now they’re 12-9 and riding a 8-1 homestand against three teams that were projected to be pretty good when the season started.

Obviously the pitching staff deserves massive praise for being the catalyst behind this streak.  Over Mike Pelfrey and Johan Santana’s last three starts each, they’ve given up a combined one run.  That’s pretty ridiculous.  Forty percent of the games the Mets are playing they are giving themselves an excellent chance to win.  And clearly Pelfrey’s progress so far has been the best part of this season.

The bullpen has also continued to be real solid.  I thought the Igarashi injury would hurt them a lot, but they’re getting by with Nieve, Feliciano and a super steady Takahashi.  The Mets seemed to go with Ted’s theory of throw a bunch of stuff against a wall and see what sticks and so far it’s worked like magic.  Even Mejia has looked better although I’d still prefer to see him starting down in the minors.

Ike Davis has been a huge lift for this team too.  I know it looks like a coincidence that the team has gone on its hot streak right as Davis was called up, but just think about it.  Before he was on the team, the Mets arguably had the worst offensive and defensive first basemen in all of baseball.  That’s a pretty tough position to be terrible at because you expect some offense from first base.  Now, Davis provides average production offensively and defensively and that makes a big difference.  I fully expect Davis to hit .270 with a .350 OBP and 15-20 HRs along with 75 RBI.  He really extends the depth of the lineup.

The rest of the lineup has picked it up, but it hasn’t been great.  David Wright was awesome tonight, but he had really been struggling lately.  Jason Bay has been better recently, but he still doesn’t have a homer.  Jose Reyes has been all right.  But honestly if this team is going to stay above .500 until Carlos Beltran returns (and who knows when that will be) the offense will have to be much, much better.

I don’t want to sound like a negative nellie.  This team deserves all the praise it’s been getting thanks to this streak.  They’re playing really sound baseball and the pitching staff has been consistently solid.  But they’ve also gotten really lucky and the teams they’ve been playing have looked like little league teams at times.  That won’t keep up.  Although I’m really looking forward to seeing what will happen this weekend in Philadelphia.  That will be a true test for the Mets.  Maybe Reyes, Bay and Wright really turn it on and the pitching does enough.  That would be awesome, but I honestly think they need Beltran back if they have any hopes of October baseball this season.