Before the season started, how many of you would guess that our leading batting avgerage this year would be that of fernando tatis? i thought the guy had retired already. i had no idea he was in the mets farm system. who would have though before the season that alou, church, pagan, and chavez would all get hurt and our corner OFers would be murphy and tatis, much less that tatis would put up these kinds of numbers! tatis is hitting .318 this year, and he has been our most clutch player. his 2 homers tonight, giving him 9 since he was called up in may, are the only reason we even had a chance to day. glad to get a great step up performance so far this year from somewhere we'd never expect it.

Can this bullpen get any worse? i bet if you added up all the games the mets have either lost via their bullpen and the games the bullpen very nearly blew, it would exceed the total of the games we've lost from our starting pitching. i know wise and wagner are out but this is still inexcusable. i'm glad we won but i'm tired of all the late game collapses!

Yes, the heroics of Fernando "Superman" Tatis saved the game once again last night. Two homers and four RBIs prevented Aaron Heilman from ruining the homecoming and helped Mike Pelfrey earn a well deserved win.

With John Maine and Billy Wagner on the DL the Mets need 'all hands on deck' when it comes to pitching. Unfortunately some of those hands (like Aaron Heilman) are really dangerous to the team. Jerry Manuel and Dan Warthen have their work cut out for them. They need to figure out a formula to finishing games that keeps the Mets in the playoff hunt.

With heilman as, um, shaky, as he has been this season and frankly his whole career with the mets in the bullpen, wagner hurt, wise hurt, dauner sanchez having lost a full 10 mph on his fastball (he's only been throwing mid 80's, which is scary), and feliciano and schoenweis being more control oriented lefty specialists, the team really doesn't have anywhere to turn for closer. anywhere except kunz. our first round pick in 2007 from a national champion Oregon team, he has faster stuff than anyone on the mets bullpen other than wagner. he is righthanded (a useful contradiction to wagner, schoenweiss, and feliciano), and has a nasty sinking action to his fastball which breaks a lot of bats and causes a lot of groundouts. his fastball reaches 95 mph. he is not your typical closer because he relies more on groundouts than strikeouts, but i don't care so long as he can get it done. i don't want to rush him into the limelight, but with how bad our pen has been i say we give him a shot to close out games for us. it can't get any worse than what we've been having recently, right? so what's the risk?

The Mets have a decidedly new flavor with Argenis Reyes (25) at second base, Dan Murphy (23) and Nick Evans (22) platooning in left field and Eddie Kunz (22) pitching in relief. These young players add much needed speed and athleticism to the team. Unfortunately our veterans are not getting it done right now so that's offsetting the youth benefits.

David Wright had a nightmare of a game last night. He made a key error at third base that let the go ahead run score. He got doubled off of first base on a fly ball out by Beltran. David's play lately is representative of the lack of productivity that we've been getting from the vets over the last week. It's very disappointing and translates to a lot of losses.

reyes and wright, our "veterans", are only 25! them plus the four guys you listed above plus 27 year old maine, 24 year old pelfrey, 19 year old fernando martinez (not ready quite yet) and those 2 great first round draft picks we got in the draft represent plenty of young talent for the future. who says we have a depeted farm?

We were very lucky to be tied going into the ninth inning. argenis reyes saved the day in the feild, just as murphy comae through big last night and tatis did the day before. we are getting lots of unexpected contributions, but out bullpen sure isn't one of them. dauner sanchez, shoenweiss, heilman...whoever manuel turned to today they stunk. and wagner has been no better. the only bullpen arm the mets have been able to rely on is that of joe smith. had the mets lost today it would have been yet another of the late game losses that have plagued us all season with our pen and bats that shut down in pressure situations. the only good news is that wright attoned for his sins and we actually got a clutch, 2 out, bottom of the ninth hitting. a good win to pull us within 2, but a scary win as well.

fixing our bullpen is a major challenge, but here's how i would go about it.

1. fire heilman. he was lucky as anything to get teh win today and deserved the loss with yet ANOTHER blown save. he is very lucky to be 2-6 right now. his era is through the roof, he has not been clutch at all, and keeps letting up homers. he's not helping, the trade deadline is gone, either demote him to AAA and hope he gets his head straight or give up on him. we're not going to get anything decent in a trade for him anyway.

2. Set up inning-by-inning roles. give wagner the 9th. give sanchez the 8th if it is a righty friendly side, feliciano if it is a lefty friendly side. give smith the 7th for righties, shoenwise the 7th for lefties. as for the 6th, supposing our starter can't make it through six, give some younger guys some chances. if the older guys can't get it done, maybe they can. kunz could work here, and ruddy lugo and ambiorix burgos are waiting for the call in triple A. all 3 have now had major league experience and it wouldn't be hard for them to do better than our current guys are. then call up some AAA starter like claudio vargas or tony armas jr. for long relief duties, for the occaional game where pedro or perez drop a bombshell and last only 3 innings or something. this way, every pitcher in the bullpen knows exactly what their role is, what inning they will have to geet 3 outs in, and how long they'll be expected to pitch. plus, with 2 guys assigned per inning, we can keep everybody fresh.

this will most likely not happen, because jerry manuel probably does not come to this site to look for guidance. still, it's just food for thought. in a tight race, a bullpen is key. we can't afford to be nervous about our chances when johan goes 7 1/3 innings and we have a 2 run lead. we have to win that game, no questions asked, no doubts about it. and that very nearly didn't happen today. again. on about as good a starting pitching performance we'll see. if we can barely hang on with johan doing that, what happens when pedro can only give us 5 innings? can we trust our bullpen to carry us 4 innings, perhaps with only a slim or nonexistent lead? how can we come from behind if our bullpen can't stop the floodgates? gulp.

but i'd take Heilman over Feliciano any day. Heilman is only getting the heat because he was chosen to be our close since he has the tools to do so (which others really don't). The fact is that nobody on the Mets is fit to be a closer if Wagner's out, though i will say that Feliciano's ERA would be twice that of Heilman's if he were our closer. I say fire Felicano, bump Heilman down to be a 6th inning man, and make Joe Smith our closer until Wagner can get back. If Heilman can't get his act together, we should start looking elsewhere but at this point, all we see is that nobody on the Mets is fit to close, period. Feliciano has been tons worse than Heilman considering the fact that he's not brought in in big situations and usually does not finish an inning if he is.

This bullpen situation is crazy. We've got all these arms and none of them are reliable right now. Seems to me that it doesn't matter how you shuffle them. I'm still gonna have a heart attack in the eighth and ninth inning until a couple of these guys step up and start getting guys out consistently again.

Feliciano is not supposed to be dominant. he isn't desinged to blow it by people (he's far too slow) and he isn't even supposed to finish the inning like you said. his sole job is to come in for one or 2 left-handed batters at a time and get some big outs. he should be used as a one batter pitcher. i agree he does not have the stuff heilman does but heilman has a higher era, a worse record, and i just don't like him as much. but you're right, both have been big problems.