Well, the 2011 schedule is out and I haven't looked at it in any detail yet except for the most selfish reason, to see if after living in Minnesota 6 years the Mets might actually come here finally.  Nope.  Wasn't there supposed to be some element of rotation to this??  We seem to play two teams here, one team there, then the Yankees a bunch.

I'm usually an optimist, but I have no happy thoughts about the mets right now. things are not looking good. remember when we had gone on a 9 game winning streak and had just clobbered the phillies? when we were in 1st place in the NL east at 14-9? well since then we've gone 4-9, an even worse skid than the one we opened the season with.

Last year at about this time I made a lengthy post outlining what I expected from the 2009 team and what we would need to do to compete. My number 1 "key to success" was our ability to stay healthy. Boy, was that prohetic or what? So naturally this is what will lead off my list of what the Mets must do to have success in 2010:

Single game tickets on sale March 7th at 10AM at Mets.com only. An hey wadda ya know. You can buy all 81 games. Remember last year when you they broke it up into a pair of dates? Guess they got the message that fans don't need to be jerked around like that. You can pick up tickets at Citi Field starting on March 8th.

I think we're all a bit underwhelmed by our progress so far this winter in building the squad back into contention. It's nice that we plugged a hole in Left Field, vacant since Moises Alou's departure, but the press all remind us of Bay's lack of defense and questions about whether his power numbers will hold up at Citifield.

Has the Bobby Parnell era begun? The New York Post reports:

"Bobby Parnell served notice last night that there might be at least one good reason to watch this floundering bunch over the season's final seven weeks: Parnell himself."