Can't hold a 4 run lead, Carlos Beltan doesn't slide at home, Murphy misplays a line drive.  Lions, tigers, and bears, oh my!

In last Thursday and Friday's games our starters blew 3-run leads.  Today Perez walks 5 and blows a 4-run lead.  Am I tired of his inconsistency! After suring up our bullpen in the offseason, this is so frustrating now seeing our starters going through this.

I think this all has to go back to spring training.  We always have this stumble and feel our way around thing for a few weeks every April.  Why?  Do other teams?  They seem to come out in midseason form, we're still running drills, it sounds like.  I don't know if it's that stupid WBC, if it's we're workign them too much, too little and assuming that everyone can just flip it on like a switch.

That said, I'm not panicking.  We've had several close games and in the long run I'm confident we'll win more of them than we lose.  And we're right where we want to be with Philadelphia.  I'm not concerned with Atlanta and not with Florida yet.  Just think how many teams will run off a 10-0 or 9-1 stretch in the course of a year.  Florida just did one early.  Big deal.  It's like the old days when Montreal would always seem poised to have that big breakout year.

The thing that stands out from getting Willie Mo to me is that he could be the left fielder and that Murphy will be traded before the deadline to get a top notch pitcher behind Johan. Murphy is swinging a good bat but his defence is just awful.

The lineup needs a good rearrange to. Move Castillo to 2nd or even Church to 2nd. Move Wright down the order and Beltran up. Then they might get more done instead of scoring runs in the first 5 innings and then stopp laying.

We've lost 2 in a row and all of a sudden I'm hearing lots of pessimistic, disgruntled, frustrated comments. I understand that and last nights loss was particularly frustrating i'll admit, but lets not get carried away and pointing the blame finger too soon. All these calls to go get more righty bats and trade murphy and shuffle around our rotation and give up on our rotation guys is premature. It is not even 3 weeks into the season, we are fine! Every baseball season has its ups and downs for every team, and a few tough losses don't mean we should make rash decisions in our frustration. Our entire lineup is hitting over .300 except for Castro, who is supposed to be a backup anyway. Our team's batting average is best in the majors, and bullpens era is best in the majors, and krod/putz have both done very well. Santana and Livan have pitched very well thusfar and Johan is as sure a bet as they come to keep doing so. The only weaknesses our team has displayed in teh early going are a) the middle of the rotation, b) clutch hitting, and c) murphy's defense. I for one am very confident that we can trun all 3 of those trends around. Our 2, 3, and 4 guys are all proving they still have the stuff and succeeding for most of the innings they pitch, but it's just one inning they seem to collapse. I think that will improve as the season wears on and they get used to pitching every 5 days again. All 3 of them have excellent stuff, they just need to get their heads and bodies into midseason form. Murphy is learning a new position and will never be a gold glover but will get better as he learns LF. I don't think any of our problems are that we don't have the personnell or a good enough team, we have loads of talent, it's just performing up to our potential that we need to work on. But don't be impatient it's a long season and there are just as many good signs early on (Livan, Castillo, Church, and Delgado, 4 of our biggest offseason ?, are all off to hot starts) as there are bad.

I have to say that the loss last night was pretty demoralizing to me. It's another one of those games that the Mets could (and probably should) have won. When you lose games on errors in the field and lax decisions by players it's never good. And when you look back at the last two seasons you see the difference that just one game can make on the season. So I think that's why we're seeing pessimism in the comments. I'm feeling it too.

The Beltran play was ridiculous. I don't know why he didn't slide into home plate. At $15 million a year there is no excuse for playing that kind of ball. I can be a bit more forgiving of Daniel Murphy. I like Murphy's bat and believe that he can get better in the outfield if he gets the work he needs. The coaches need to earn their money with Daniel Murphy.

There are good signs too. We've got a strong offense that Jerry Manuel may need to shuffle a bit in order to make things work. I believe that this time is better than 6-7. A lot better.

Another series loss.... :(

I think the home series coming up with the nationals will tell us how good or bad the mets are at the moment. We should sweep the series easily but if i dare say it we lose the series to them at citi field then i think we should start to be pessimistic and panic alittle about the season.

Remember that at this point both the Mets and Nationals are effectively road teams unfamiliar with Citi Field.  Once the Mets have played 30-40 games there and opponents have each played 3-6 games, the Mets should be able to use the stadium to their advantage.  Right now it's a crap shoot.

You talk about sweeps.  Come on! Maybe the Mets should concentrate on winning a ball game once in awhile then get into the habit on winning a series or two in sequence.

It's been a rough start so far this season. The Mets were 9-6 last year at this point. Things can turn quickly this early in the season so although I'm disappointed so far I have faith that we can get it together and right the ship very soon.