Thats what I'm talking about

Two out of three. Not quite a sweep, but a very acceptable weekend. Pound the bad teams and get a winning streak going, that's all the Mets need right now.

Carlos, if you always want to use a pink bat that's fine by me. Seriously. Maybe it has the same effect on the pitcher as the pink locker room does to Iowa opponents.

Beltran has been on a hot streak these last couple games. He's raised is average from .216 earlier in the week to up in the .250s, and has driven in 8 runs in the past two days. Coincidence that the Mets have won 3 out of 4, I think not.

But the most important thing right now is the way the Mets are tacking on runs. At least 8 runs in 3 of the last 4 games, including back to back 12 spots, is a great way to win some games. The way the team is scoring is encouraging as well, picking up two out RBI. If you watch SportsCenter (or is it Baseball Tonight) you know two out hits get you to heaven. I don't know about heaven, but winning games is nice.

Let's keep it up against the Nationals.

Big stretch coming up

How long before "there's still x % of the season left to be played" gets old? Don't get me wrong, I like the work they do over at Metsblog, and I understand the logic that we still have time to turn it around. But that doesn't mean I agree with it. I'm a solutions guy, and this doesn't add to the solution to me. Instead, I think it only compounds the problem.

How do we get people to stop justifying a season that has been disappointing so far? Win. Winning cures everything, its true. And we should be doing a lot of it in the coming weeks. The Mets have the Reds, Nationals, Yankees, Braves, Rockies, and Marlins coming up, in that order. Combined they are 94-110. When you consider the Marlins are overachieving to this point, that record should be worse.

The Mets should be able to take each of these series, and only the Braves and Yankees should give them trouble in doing so. They play 20 games in this stretch, and a 13-7 record or better should emerge. This takes us until the end of May, and would put the overall record at 30-22.

But if it isn't I know what I'll be hearing. There's still 68% of the season left to be played.

The Stopper

What we have been hearing since the Johan trade is that he's a stopper. He can prevent a prolonged losing streak by picking up key victories. Apparently, we had a guy like that all along.

For the second time this season, Big Pelf has stepped up to stop a losing streak, right when it seemed like the fans were about to go over the edge. His last start was the first of a three-game winning streak, after dropping three straight to the Braves and Phillies. Now, with words like lackluster and disappointing being the predominant adjectives to describe the start of the Mets season, Pelf steps up again and gets a win.

Now, we had all heard what "they" were saying about him. Never going to be a #1 starter. Doesn't have the mental toughness. Might have what it takes to be a solid middle reliever. Doesn't have the killer instinct.

Well guess what. Maybe "they" were wrong. Maybe Big Pelf does have what it takes. He's proven it in this young season, holding the Phillies to two runs and throwing seven shutout innings against Washington, ending losing streaks both times. We'll see how his season pans out, but he makes me want to believe.

But we might want to keep that Johan around, just in case.

P.S. Welcome back Dirty.

Opening Day

First of all I would like to apologize for the long layoff. Expect regular posts throughout the season. Okay, down to the nitty-gritty.

1-0

All we can really ask for at this point. Haters can say what they want about posting a dominating victory over the Marlins, but this is what we're supposed to do. We're supposed to take care of business against the Marlins, Nationals, and Pirates.

Oh, wait. Those other two teams all won yesterday. Oh, wait, they beat teams that are supposed to compete with us for a division title. Atlanta and Phillie both went down to teams that haven't been over .500 on the same day since March 31, 2003. Atlanta needed a gift from Jason Bay and Nate McClouth to even take the Pirates to extra innings.

Meanwhile, Johan did his thing in Miami, and David Wright continues his trend of extending hitting streaks between seasons with a double that blew this one open. Bullpen was shaky, but did the job on a day when bullpen issues were the big story, especially in Atlanta and Philadelphia.

The other big story: Former Mets helping us out. Xavier Nady (The Untier according to Baseball Tonight) hit two home runs against Atlanta, including the go-ahead 3 run blast in the 12th. Lastings belted a 2-run homer in Philly and scored the go-ahead run in the 9th. Lo Duca added an RBI double to extend Washington's lead.

If these guys do more damage against our division opponents for other teams that they did for the Mets then trading them works out well no matter what we got for them. As for our other trade this offseason, after one game it looks pretty good.