New York Mets April Recap

The first month of the season has come and gone for the New York Mets, and an interesting month it has been for the club. A team that wasn't projected to do very much this season, they have managed to hang around the middle of the pack in the National League East for the opening month of the year, they currently sit at 13-11, which is good enough for 3rd place and 1.5 games behind the division leading Washington Nationals, who is another club that has surprised a few people here in the opening month of the season. The team has put up a decent fight so far despite having to battle the injury bug early on this year.

Andres Torres, who was brought over from the Giants in the Pagan trade during the winter, has done a somewhat OK job in center field, only having played in three games due to injury. He hurt his hamstring during spring training down in Florida, and seemed to be ready to go for the opener, but during said game injured the leg again and missed three weeks, recently coming back at the start of the current series in Houston against the Astros. It's too early to tell whether he was worth the pickup from the Giants, considering that Angel Pagan has been tarring it up by comparison. To Torres credit, he's only played in three games because of the injury, so will have to give him more time before a judgment can be made but as far as his offense is concerned I'm not expecting all that much from a guy who was a lifetime .243 hitter entering this season and is hitting right at .200 after three games played.

The other big losses as of now are Jason Bay and Mike Pelfrey to injury. Bay is on the DL with a fractured rib. He was hitting .240 with three homers and five runs batted in, but even without dealing with the injury bug hasn't quite lived up to the potential that the Mets saw in him when they gave him the big contract to play in New York. He had driven in no less than 80 runs in a season every year in baseball before coming back to the team that originally drafted him and has been a bit of a disappointment. Lets hope for his sake, and the sake of the club he can return to his form once he returns from the DL.As for Pelfery his season is officially over, after having soreness in his pitching arm which is now revealed to require Tommy John Surgery. When the year started, Mike was set to make $5.7 million this year after winning that from arbitration during the winter months. So with that large of a contract he had some big numbers to try and live up to. In the three games he started, Pelfrey wasn't able to record a decision, and in 19.1 innings he pitched, he gave up 24 hits and allowed five earned runs while striking out 13. Decent numbers for early on in the season but with him now out of the rotation for the year, the Mets need to find somebody to pick up the slack.

Now then, as for the play of the team on the field the first month of the season, the Mets have looked pretty decent. They won the first four games of the year, a sweep of the Braves to open the season and then taking the first game from the Nationals. Then dropped the next two to the Nats, including a good pitching duel between Johan Sanatan and Steven Strausberg. After dropping the series to the Nats, the team responded nicely by taking two of three from the Phillies, the hated rival right now of the Mets. Then the team seamed to sort of snap back to reality after the good start, going 2-5 over their next seven in losing series to the Braves in Atlanta and dropping three of four to the Giants at home. After the Giants series they welcomed back old buddy Jose Reyes and the Miami Marlins, to which the club responded with a three game sweep. They then went on to take two of three from the Rockies in Denver before dropping the last two to the Astros in Houston.

There have been a few pleasant surprise for the team in the opening month and a few that are leaving u scratching you're head.

One of the head scratches, if you want to call it that, is the fact that Johan Santana is 0-2 in his five starts this season. Granted Santana is coming off missing all of last season with shoulder surgery, the fact that he hasn't been able to win a game yet is a bit of a surprise. This is a guy who is a four time all star and has twice won the cy young, while pitching for the Twins in the American League. He started on opening day and went five scoreless innings, then lost his next start to Strausberg and Washington. In his five starts this year, Johan has pitched 24 innings, has a 2.25 ERA and 29 strikeouts. In his starts this year Johan has allowed 8 earned runs and given up 16 hits while holding opponents to a .141 batting average. It just seems that when he does get hit this season, it causes damage, and much like Pedro Martinez had a few years ago with the Mets, has been getting limited run support. Once again its early in the season, and Santana is trying to regain his cy young form after last yer surgery. Lets hope he can figure things out.

With Santana trying to find his game again, and now with Pelfrey done for the year, the slack in the starting rotation has been picked up by the likes of R.A. Dickey, Jonathan Neese and Dilon Gee. Dickey is the Mets best pitcher at the moment with a 3-1 with a 4.45 ERA and 28 strikeouts. The ERA is a bit high for Dickey for my liking, but the fact that he has won three of his first five starts is a pleasant surprise and is worth overlooking the high ERA at the moment. But what can't be overlooked is the fact that he has been homered off of seven times already this season and that really needs to come down if the Mets want to stay competitive. As for Johathan Neese, he is 2-1 with a 4.08 ERA and has 24 strikeouts in his five starts. Dillon Gee is 2-1 with a 4.85 ERA and 23 strikeouts in his four starts. The ERA for the starting pitchers for the Mets is a bit high for my liking and will need to come down if the team wants to contend for the division. Another nice surprise for the team has been the closer Frank Francisco who has four saves in five chances  this season. He looked great at the start of the year but has come down to earth a bit in the past two weeks. But two his credit, he has been more stable in the closer role than K-Rod was last year.

On Offense by far and away the biggest disappointments has been the slow start of Ike Davis on offense. Ike missed most of last season with an ankle injury, but before he got hurt last year, playing in 36 games, hitting .302 with 7 home runs and 25 RBI's. The year before he played in 147 games hitting .264 with 17 home runs and 72 RBI's. So Ike can hit at the big league level and is a very good defensive 1st baseman, but this year has gotten of to a horrible start hitting just .188 with three homers and eight RBI's in 23 games. As most Mets fans can tell you the guy has pop in his bat, but right now I'm really starting to wonder where it is, and how quickly can he get it back.

Leading the way on offense, to nobodies surprise, is David Wright. He is hitting .395 through the first month with three homers and 14 RBI's in 21 games he's played in this season. he missed some time with injuries during the opening weeks of the season and has seemed to have fallen back to earth a bit, as he started off the year with a hot streak like it was nobodies business. Wright was able to drive in 100 or more RBI's in five of his first six major  league seasons. Last year he had a down year driving in only 61 runs, his lowest total since he drove in 40 his first year with the team in 2004, and that year he only played 40 games. Some people believe Wright has been trying to do too much the last few years with the team, and they might be right, as he hasn't had all that much protection in the lineup. But I'm looking for him to have a bounce back year this year.

Another big surprise has been the play of Lucas Duda and Kirk Nieuwenhuis. Duda is hitting under .300 but leads the club in homers with 4, while Nieuwenhuis is hitting .333. both guys have been very solid on defense in the Mets outfield and Duda has been a decent surprise in the power department for the club, whoa re trying to find a way to replace the power and runs that left when Calros Beltran was traded late last season. Wright and Duda are the only two guys who have driven in more than 10 runs this season, while the team has stole a total of 7 bases all year, which is worst in the NL. The departure of Jose Reyes to the Marlins during the winter may be a BIG reason why the stolen base numbers are down this year. Another thing the team has to be a bit concerned with is the num ber of strikeouts the team has on offense. At least four guys have struck out at least 20 times, with Nieuwenhuis leading the way with 27 strikeouts.

Like I said before, it's only a month into the season, but some of the holes in the lineup are becoming evident. For this club to become more of a contender in what appears at the moment to be a weak NL East, the pitching staff needs to get it worked out and the offense needs to cut down on the strikeouts. Otherwise its been an OK to decent to open the season.