When worry over the Mets ability to beat the Braves resurfaced recently with them dropping the series in Atlanta, I didn’t panic. I’m still convinced Atlanta’s not a great team, nowhere near as good as the Mets, and it’s just coincidence that they’ve played badly when we’ve faced them. Call it a let down from the Yankee series or whatever you want, but they can’t win them all. Two days later and the Mets are already further in front then they were before they faced them, so they can just keep winning series and widening the distance.
When the Braves get into a funk, it’s different then when the Mets do. The Braves have now lost three of their last four series, and sure they’ve run into some teams playing well, and some teams that are just good, but when a good team would still be able to beat the Nationals when they’re playing well. The Phillies on the other hand, haven’t been playing that well and recently lost their second closer of the season in Brett Myers.
So again, I’m not worried. To reinforce my not-worryingness, some good signs came out of this series with the Marlins. Carlos Delgado remembered how to hit the ball, hard. Jose Reyes had some hard hits, and was robbed by Miguel Cabrera. David Wright didn’t get hits, but he did get three walks with no strikeouts, and finally John Maine started pitching pretty well again. He did walk some people, but I think he’s making a case that May, not April, was the aberration.
Of course, there were bad signs too. Shawn Green and Carlos Gomez hurting themselves would be up there. Gomez was fun to watch, but even if his injury’s minor, you’re not going to keep a guy with that much speed up in the majors with a hamstring pull. There has been a lot of calls for Shawn Green’s head, mainly because of his defense, and Endy Chavez should continue to get a lot of playing time, especially before Moises Alou returns in the near future. David Newhan will be getting some more chances to prove he’s valuable here, with a couple of starts. Otherwise it’s likely we may see Ben Johnson from New Orleans up here in the near future. Hopefully Newhan can come through, Shawn Green and Moises Alou were big parts of the Mets offense, and even though they can get by without them, it’s never good to lose that production. Hopefully Endy Chavez and David Newhan can have some good games and some consistency as the Mets continue trying to widen their lead in the NL East.