The shelling last night brought the team back down to earth. Jerry Manuel fielded what was supposed to be an "offensive oriented" lineup and they put up zero runs. So much for that. Livan Hernandez has had a pair of awful outings in a row now. But it doesn't matter much when no runs are scored.

This team won't get going consistently until Carlos Beltran and Jose Reyes are healthy and playing every day. We're going to need those two guys and an additional bat that Omar picks up on the trade market. Then the Mets are back in it. We can also expect Angel Pagan back soon from what I understand. So if the team can stay a handful of games out of first over the next two weeks I think that the season is salvageable and the playoffs are possible.

Another day, same story.  Get to work about 2, log onto ESPN and find what?  We're on the short end of a low-scoring, winnable game and have done  absolutely nothing for offense.  Down 2-0 and we've had two singles...one by Santana.  Just beautiful, why do I bother?

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And the 9th inning comeback as played out on ESPN:

Wright struck out swinging
Church struck out swinging
N Evans struck out looking

Does it get better....swept in Philadelphia.  Another L for Johan.  3 games under and 4th place all to ourselves.  Start of this series we had a better "previous 10 games" than Philadelphia incredibly; look where we are now.  Disgraceful.

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OK, 3rd place tie.  So much better.

The Mets did nothing meaningful offensively this weekend. And you get the result we got. Jerry Manuel tried to mix up the lineup but it really doesn't matter how you mix it up. David Wright is really slumping right now and after that the Mets have nothing. There's no power. There's no big threat in the lineup. And that's that.

Omar Minaya MUST make a deal to get a big hitter or the Mets season is OVER. I'm not counting on Carlos Delgado returning in August or September. If Delgado does return it may be too late by then. So the question that we need to be pondering is this. Who would we trade to get the big hitter we need?

It's a short list. There are a number of players who we couldn't trade even if we wanted to so the options are really limited. These are players who are playing with the team right now.

David Wright, Johan Santana, Francisco Rodriguez, Luis Castillo, Ryan Church, Brian Schneider

That's it for me. Everyone else who's currently active and playing is expendable. I'd keep Castillo, Church and Schneider because I think they work well as supporting players in a solid lineup.

I think that the way the Mets have played so far this season shows one major thing.

How important Reyes is to this team.

There is no spark no energy of life in the team.

Do you think the team would have done better or worse if Wright was injured and Reyes was playing?