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Another day, another tough loss for the Mets.  You can’t win them all as you always hear but every once in a while, you’d like to win a tight game like this one.  The Mets came from behind and tied the game in the sixth inning…and that’s right when the game ended for the Mets.

With bases loaded and one out, Jerry brought Fernando Tatis off the bench to pinch hit for Fernando Martinez.  This certainly wasn’t as egregious as some of Jerry’s other moves, but I would have left F-Mart in to hit.  I know it was a lefty/lefty matchup, but let the kid get a big hit.  Let him build his confidence against a guy that was about to melt down.  So Tatis comes in and does what he does best…hit into an inning-ending double play.  Tatis came into this at-bat hitting 5 for 38 with RISP.  And he’s coming off the bench cold.  I know it’s tough to disagree with Jerry on this one, but at the time I truly felt it was the wrong decision.

Pedro Feliciano gave up the big bomb tonight.  You can’t really criticize him because he’s been awesome all year.

Just a tough loss because the Phillies also lost and the Mets really need to grit out a game or two with all these guys hurt.  Although if Luis Castillo can’t squeeze the ball on a routine pop-up, then how can I expect three comebacks in one game.  That’s too much to ask for from this team.  Ugh.  Maybe we’ll take the series tomorrow night.

The Mets really have to make everything difficult, don’t they? Up 6-2 going into the ninth against a seemingly dead team, there’s no way this game is going to be interesting. Is it?  Of course it is.  K-Rod gets the final out, but not before the Orioles get the tying run to second base.  But ahh, this is why we love the Mets…or is it why we hate them?

Really the only positives to take from this game were Mike Pelfrey was awesome for five innings until falling apart.  I loved that David Wright got in his face afterwards.  Finally, someone telling another teammate what’s up.  Sean Green and Pedro Feliciano continue to be awesome.  And the Mets capitalized on some boneheaded plays by the O’s.

Now the bad: Pelfrey couldn’t get through the sixth inning.  Come on Mike!  What’s with the mental breakdowns my friend?  After Wright calls out Pelfrey for falling apart, he jogs to first base on the dropped pop up to Aubrey Huff that proved to be the difference.  Not only is that inexcusable no matter what, but off the bat I said to my dad that it wasn’t going to be an easy play.  And Wright wasn’t the only guilty one.  Carlos Beltran looked like he was taking a stroll through the park on his way to third base.  He should have easily scored, and I don’t want to hear anyone saying otherwise.  If Mark Teixeira can score on a pop up to second, there’s no question Beltran, who’s about 10 times faster than Tex, should be able to do the same on a high pop behind first base.  And it was a 3-2 pitch!!  He was getting a head start!!  I hate to say it, but this team is just never going to learn its lesson.

Bobby Parnell and K-Rod were super shaky in the ninth.  Parnell gave up two singles before being removed and then Rodriguez walks two guys to get the tying runs on base.  Yikes!

Well as they say, a win is a win.  They didn’t beat the Orioles, 15-0, but it’s all the same in the standings.  Still, this game didn’t exactly exude any sort of confidence in you if you’re a Mets fan.  And if you’re on this site, you likely are.  Let’s see if Tom’s bold prediction can hold true for Wednesday.

1 in 500.  Those were the odds.  And today it happened.  The 1 happened to the Mets and it cost them today’s rubber match.  In the bottom of the second inning, the Yankees had 1st and 3rd with two outs and scored four runs.  In the top of the third, the Mets had bases loaded with no outs and didn’t score any runs.  The odds of both of that happening is .2 percent or 1 in 500.  They don’t call ‘em the Amazins for nothing.

What were the odds of Luis Castillo dropping that pop up on Friday?  Probably about .2 percent.  What were the odds you blow a seven game lead with 17 games left in the season?  Right around .2 percent.

Baseball is about a game of numbers and percentages and somehow those percentages mean nothing to the Mets.  You have to give them some credit…they manage to consistently do the impossible.

Today was such a disgusting display of baseball there’s really no point to break it down.  Just remember 1 in 500 because that’s how this squad will be remembered…a once-in-a-liftetime group of underachievers.

Notes: Just wanted to link to this article to show I came up with the .2 percent from today’s game.  Also, it was pretty funny to see Frankie Rodriguez confront Brian Bruney before today’s game.  You mean someone on the Mets has a set?  Shocking!  You gotta love K-Rod though.  I feel for him because he’s the rare exception with this team.  They need more guys like him who will actually stand up for himself.

Johan Santana’s lack of production is starting to scare me.  I hope he isn’t hurt.  That would put the nail in the coffin to the 2009 season.

Jerry Manuel is really lucky half his team is injured or else he would be in jeopardy of losing his job.  Jerry might be the worst baseball tactitian I’ve ever seen.  He continues to make some horrid decisions and they almost always fail.  Sure, some of the guys like to play for him but what good does that do?  They don’t run hard, their defense is atrocious and they run the bases worse than my 4th grade Little League team.  So if you don’t make the right baseball decisions and your team plays like a bunch of morons, what good are you as a manager?  Jerry is escaping a lot of the blame for this season, and he should be counting his blessings.

If you can’t tell by this past week of posts, but I’ve lost almost all of my faith in this team.  I don’t really know why it took me this long.  They choked away the last three seasons and somehow we all got sucked into thinking this year’s team would be different even though the bullpen is the only difference from the past three years.  They just find ways to lose.  They’ll play great for stretches because they have a ton of talent, but the story always ends the same way…with Mets fans miserable after the final pitch of the season.

Even if Fernando Nieve doesn’t do anything the rest of his Mets career, he did more today than one could ever ask for.  After arguably the worst loss you’ll ever see, Nieve was brilliant today in a huge Mets win.  His stuff looked great and he was throwing strikes and just dominating the powerful Yankees offense.  It would be amazing for this team if Nieve can keep it up and firm up a spot in the battered rotation.

Omir Santos got the Mets rolling with a huge two-run homer in the second inning.  Santos has come up with monster hits all year and the early bomb certainly ranks up there.  The Mets had to get off a quick start today if they were going to win.  I think if the Yanks scored first, this game would have ended differently.  But thanks to Santos we’ll never know.

The offense continued to get a ton of hits throughout the game.  They combined for 17 today, which brings up a troubling trend…the lack of hits with RISP.  When you get 17 hits, you should be scoring close to 10 runs.

Gary Sheffield had another awesome game.  He hit an absolute bomb in the seventh and drove in another run with an opposite field single.  I think the rest he got over the past couple of weeks has done him well.  He looks refreshed.

The Mets need to take this series tomorrow afternoon with Johan Santana on the mound.  Today was a must win and tomorrow is as well.  At least they could say they went 3-3 in this tough six-game stretch and easily could have been 6-0.  But you can’t be too upset if Johan wins tomorrow…first thing’s first, we need the win.

It pains me to even write “Yankees 9, Mets 8.”  I mean I don’t know how words can describe what I just witnessed.  After writing about how the Mets can ill afford to give away games with half their team hurt, they suffer the worst loss I’ve ever seen in my 24 years of existence.  I’ve never seen anything as pathetic as what happened tonight.  And this was the second time the Mets dropped a routine infield pop up in the ninth inning with two outs!!! Luckily the first time, they got out of it.

There’s no point wasting time talking about David Wright or Gary Sheffield or Pedro Feliciano.  The season is going one of two ways from here.  Either this team is completely done and they’re going on a massive losing streak which ultimately ends the 2009 campaign.  Or they’re completely motivated to not put themselves in these predicaments anymore.  How many absurd losses can a team suffer in one season!?

It’s just unbelieveable, unfathomable, discipable, whatever you want to call it.  Luis Castillo deserves to be shot.  Although he’s been very good this season, if the Mets cut him tomorrow I would be happy.  I know it’s completely irrational, but that’s how much hatred I feel for him right now.  To lose a game like this after the last two games and to the Yankees and with A-Rod up!!…if Friday Night Lights wrote a ending like this, I would say it’s too unrealistic because no one loses this way.  Not even the Mets!!  Well I would have been wrong.

I do want to give props to Mark Teixeira who took nothing for granted on the pop up and scored from first base.  How many Mets score on that drop?  I say one…Fernando Tatis.  They’d be lucky to be at third.  That’s how friggin lazy this team is.  I have unemployed friends who try harder at eating breakfast than the Mets do at running the bases.

My friend Jeff Boz, who’s a Yankees fan, sent me a great text that capped off the night.  It actually cheered me up.  “The 2009 Mets…they can catch the swine flu but not a routine pop up.”  Sad but true…sad but true.

If you thought last season was frustrating, this one has the potential to top the cake.  Another brutal loss for the Mets tonight and I have a few things I want to say.

Jerry Manuel is starting to bother me…a lot.  I’ve been a fan of his from the start, but I’m starting to lose my faith in him.  Why is he bunting in the first inning of a Tim Redding-Jamie Moyer game!?  Not that it really matters.  You should never be bunting in the first inning unless the pitcher is up.  Never! I mean come on!  Are we ever going to have a big inning if after every leadoff double we get, we immediately give up an out!?  This is ridiculous and needs to stop immediately!  And the funny thing is the Mets scored after the bunt, and I still think it was a terrible move.  It’s just mind boggling.

And not that I disagreed with bringing in Ken Takahashi although I’m sure plenty of fans did, but it does seem like every questionable move Jerry makes turns out to be a bad one.  There should be times where Jerry will make a weird move and then afterwards can say “Told ya so!”  We haven’t seen that because he goes with his gut and his gut is usually wrong.

But really on a bigger note, the Phillies are better than the Mets right now which makes these last two games that much worse.  You’re probably questioning my logic but do let me explain.  With all the guys the Mets have hurt right now, there’s no question the Phils are the superior team.  So the only way for the Mets to pass up the defending champs is to take advantage of every chance they get.  Well the last two games they held multi-run leads in the sixth inning or later.  You have to win these games when given the chance because the Phils are going to get more chances since they’re better.

I respect the hell out of the Phillies though.  They play hard-nosed baseball, they’re great defensively and you almost never see them make a silly mistake on the basepaths.  It’s not a coincidence that they’re basically the opposite from the Mets on those standpoints.  The Phils just seem to always find a way to win and each night it’s a different guy.  I really admire the way they play the game.

On a positive note, I think the Mets’ effort was excellent this series.  You won’t hear a peep out of me as far as edge or hustle goes.  This team looked focus these past three games and just couldn’t execute when they needed to.  I’m just disappointed because everything was in place for a huge sweep that would have evened out both of their records and instead the Mets find themselved four games back.  And those four games seem like a lot because the Mets just aren’t that good right now.  It’s the sad truth.  Maybe a trip to the Bronx will cure their troubles, but I don’t know.  They go to 1-2 during this all-important 32-game stretch where each game counts oh so very much.  You just hope a good weekend in the Bronx will erase the bad memories of a disappointing week in Queens.

A night after their best win of the year, the Mets follow it up with their most disappointing loss.  For the sixth time this season, the Mets blew a three-run lead.  They left 16 guys on base.  Just brutal.

The offense go to Cole Hamels early, but couldn’t capitalize on the numerous chances they had.  The Phils made some nice defensive plays, especially Werth’s diving catch on Wright’s liner in the 10th, but the Mets just needed one more hit with RISP.

Mike Pelfrey was awesome until the 7th.  It looked he got tired and then couldn’t get the job done.

The defense certainly let the team down in that inning.  Carlos Beltran dropped a fly ball to centerfield and then David Wright coughed up a slow grounder that cost the team another run.  The two core guys have been awesome all year so you can’t kill them, but those were very costly plays.

Tough loss for Bobby Parnell.  Chase Utley just murders the Mets like everyone else on the Phils, and he took advantage of a fastball that caught too much plate.

Really, really tough loss tonight.  They have to bounce back and win tomorrow.  You aren’t going to get too many better opportunities to get a W on Cole Hamels.  And the Mets pretty much need to win every single time they have a three-run lead over the next 30 games.  They can’t give up games like this because they aren’t good enough.  So they’re 1-1 so far in this stretch, but they should be 2-0.

That was some game.  For the first time all season, this felt like a playoff game.  Citi Field was absolutely rocking and both teams played really well.  It was tense throughout the affair and luckily the Mets came out on top.

The two remaining core members got the Mets off to an early 3-0 start.  David Wright is halfway there to my bold prediction and Carlos Beltran hit a bomb too.  Moses and I talked about how the Mets don’t need to hit more home runs, but they could certainly help.  Tonight proved why.  They didn’t get many hits, but they took advantage of the ones they got.

Nice to see Ryan Church hit that bomb into the apple.  He’s been so dreadful for so long, and the Mets could really use a productive Church with Reyes and Delgado out.  Gotta hope this series can get him back on track.

Johan Santana wasn’t great tonight, but I love his competitiveness.  Did you see the look in his eyes when Jerry came out to remove him from the game?  He looked like he was about to stab his own manager.  I know you don’t want to show up your skipper, but I absolutely loved that.  He had fire in his eyes.  If the Mets make the playoffs, watching Santana pitch in October will be the most fun I’ll ever have watching baseball.  It’s like having Superman on your side.  You just feel supremely confident when Santana is in your corner.

Gotta hand it to the bullpen for closing the door shut.  Pedro Feliciano was remarkable and K-Rod remained perfect.  I also tip my cap to Jimmy Rollins for that hard slide to keep the game going.  That’s the type of stuff I talk about when I say the Phillies have an edge and the Mets don’t.  When was the last time you saw someone on the Mets break up a play at second like that?  Wright and Beltran just run out of harm’s way on those plays.  Good for Rollins and I hope the Mets will do the same from now on.

Awesome first game to this difficult 32-game stretch.  The Mets are now 1-0 and will try to keep things rolling tomorrow night.  And yes, I will keeping a tally of how they do over these next 32.  Drew said if they go 18-14, the team will be in excellent position to make the playoffs.  Just gotta go 17-14 from here on out.

This game was over before Livan Hernandez ever took the mound.  It was a rare no-doubter for the Mets.  This was just the game you’d want to see from this team right before a brutal stretch of games.

The offense looked really good today.  Pretty much everyone in the lineup hit the ball hard.  The defense played solid and the pitching was awesome.  There isn’t much negative you can say about this game.

Livan Hernandez has been a savior in the rotation.  Right now, he’s the second best pitcher in the staff and if you guessed that before the year, you win some sort of prize because I don’t think anyone else would have agreed.  He’s pitching deep into games and keeping the Mets in all but a couple of his starts.  Hopefully, he proves Tom Boorstein wrong and keeps it up.

The 7-5 span against these bad teams really wasn’t that good, but that’s what happens when you get swept in one of the series.  They got off to a great start, going 5-1, but things fell apart against the hapless Pirates.

This next month will be so interesting.  The team will be without Jose Reyes, Carlos Delgado and J.J. Putz and they play a ton of great teams.  If they can weather the storm, and go .500, they should be in decent shape for the rest of the season.  But you really have to hope things don’t start to unravel and the team crumbles.  That’s my fear, but let’s see what kind of resolve this group has.  It starts on Tuesday against the Phillies and luckily for the Mets, Johan Santana will be on the mound.

Well I have been in and out of touch with the Mets over the past few days.  I haven’t watched much of their last three games and that’s probably for the best because they’re lucky to win one of those games.

The starting pitching has been getting bombed lately.  Pelfrey and Maine have looked terrible in their last starts.  I hope that’s an abberation and not a harbinger of things to come.

Without two of their cores, the offense is just not good enough to consistently get the job done.  It’s tough to blame the heart or desire when they’re putting out a half Triple-A lineup.  They just aren’t very good at this point.  I feel for the players and Jerry Manuel…but not so much for Omar Minaya.  I predicted this would happen before the season to a friend of mine in the Mets organization.  When I said they needed at least one more big bat, he said well you have the four core, Murphy will be better, Church will be healthy and Castillo and Schneider can’t be any worse.  Well the core played the entire season last year and all were very good.  You can’t expect that two years in a row and you can’t assume Murphy and Church will be better.  The front office missed out on so many offensive guys on the cheap this offseason.  Adam Dunn, Orlando Hudson, Raul Ibanez all could have been had for the right price.

Let’s get the series win tomorrow.  Pretty pathetic they’ve lost 4 of 5 from the Pirates and the Nats.  Yikes.