How about four Mets home runs in a game? When's the last time that happened? Even though it's against the Nats the Mets power surge last night was a great thing to see. I'm tired of hearing excuses about the design of Citi Field. Guys need to eat their Wheaties before they come to the park. After all, our opponents seem to manage to go deep at Citi. Mike Pelfrey's good start was another encouraging sign.

The good news is that Oliver Perez didn't pitch too poorly today against the lowly Nationals. It wasn't a great outing but it wasn't a disaster either. Hey that's what passes for good news these days. Jose Reyes returned and unfortunately made a key flub at short that was mercifully ruled an infield hit. The worst news was the Mets performance with the bases loaded. Twice they had em loaded (once with no outs) and scored zero runs in those two innings. Really frustrating. I know it's early but this season feels like 2009 and 2008 and 2007 already.

Joel Sherman of the New York Post tears up the Mets in a post today titled 'Mets' season starts with unacceptable attitude.' Look, it's hard to be positive when you start the season 2-4 on a homestand against two of the weaker teams in the league. But I think the Mets need to be more motivated than this. Sherman writes the following in his article.

"So how is it possible that in discussing the sixth game of this season manager Jerry Manuel said: "We appeared unprepared"? How could the congenitally honest Jeff Francoeur concede: "We have to get the intensity back we had on Opening Day?""

Yowza! Opening day intensity? Not prepared? Hello. Opening day was a week ago. How can major leaguers get so complacent so quickly? Who are the leaders of the 2010 Mets? The first two leaders should be David Wright and Jose Reyes. They are legit vets now and lifelong Mets. Please don't tell me about the veteran presence of Gary Matthews Jr.

The Mets are a better team than this. In a few weeks Carlos Beltran will be back and hopefully healthy. Til then we have Wright, Reyes, Luis Castillo, Jason Bay and Jeff Francoeur to hold down the fort offensively. Even if the Mets' pitching slips up this team should still be .500 or a little better by the middle of May.

I'm not going to sweat it too much right now because I've seen the Mets get it together quickly in the past. All I ask is no more repeat performances of what we saw yesterday. The Mets were lethargic and ineffective against a washed up starting pitcher. That can't happen too often if the Mets are going to be in the hunt in 2010.