Mike's Mets

I had a feeling going into last night's game that the winning streak was going to come to an end. The Mets had been playing sharp baseball and getting more than their share of the breaks, and it just seemed that a little bit of a letdown was inevitable. There were some obvious things that went wrong last night, but before we get to them let's talk about what went right.

Right through the point in the third inning where Melvin Mora drove in the O's second run and then stole second, I had the feeling I was watching the Alay Soler that we saw when he first came up -- falling behind batters, throwing a zillion pitches, nibbling at the corners. Something seemed to happen to him, however, as he struck out Miguel Tejada, Ramon Hernandez and Corey Patterson to get out of that inning. Those were the first 3 of 12 batters in a row that he retired before leaving the game after the sixth. Too bad Heilman came in and coughed up the win for Soler, but he's looking more and more like a guy that's going to be a very solid starting pitcher. With Steve Trachsel's continuing struggles, you can't overestimate how important this can be for the Mets.

Jose Reyes seems to be heating up again at the plate; unlike most of the other Mets last night he brought his bat home with him from the road trip. I know that I'm not telling you anything that you don't know when I say that a hot Jose Reyes usually means a nice offensive stretch for the Mets. Finally, Heath Bell actually pitched 2 scoreless innings, though he did have to survive a pair of hits in the first one. Bell has given up 19 hits in 14 innings so far this year. His previous 1-inning stints in Arizona and Philly were hitless, but he has given up hits in all seven of his other appearances, and in 6 of those 7 games he allowed more than one.

Other than Soler, Bell and Reyes, about the only other thing I can say that's positive is that the Phillies, Braves and Nationals all lost, too.

Thoughts on the game
I've talked a lot about Aaron Heilman in this space recently. I'm not sure what else there is to say about him. I mentioned last time he pitched that Keith Hernandez felt that Heilman should develop a cutter to use to pitch lefties inside, and I think that's a good idea for the long run, but in the short run his biggest problem is that his mechanics are bad, he's overthrowing the ball, and his confidence is understandably shot. I don't by into the theory that his struggles are related to wanting to be a starting pitcher, because he certainly isn't building a case for himself on that front right now.

It might be beneficial to use more of Feliciano and Bradford later in the game for now and try to get Heilman some 2 or 3 inning appearances where he could try to work through his mechanical problems. The Mets are going to need him. They have 6-inning starters and we don't want Duaner Sanchez to wind up with 125 innings pitched. As for booing him, do you really miss Matsui that much? Heilman has stunk lately, but it just seems Mets fans have a need to single out someone as a scapegoat nowadays. I'm not going to argue with you here, but do you really think the booing helps the team? Do we think that Heilman is pitching bad because he's sulking? He's been a pretty solid team player for the last couple of seasons.

I'll be cheering for Pedro tonight to beat former Met Kris Benson and start another winning streak.

Box Score