Movin' On Up

The Mets are now one game over .500 with last night's victory. Trachsel turned in another superb performance and the second straight shutout by Met pitchers. The generous strike zone sure did not hurt either. Piazza slammed another homerun, Cliff Floyd picked up a couple hits, and the Mets were aided by six base on balls which certainly came back to hurt the Phillies. Pat Burrel the Met killer was 0-3 with 3 K's and the 3-4-5 spots in the Phillies lineup managed only one hit and K'd six times. I do realize it was one game, but it was a statement game.

Wigginton's error in the 7th inning was just flat out ugly. As much as I have been against rushing David Wright, it is getting hard to ignore the fact that he may be able to help and has to be an upgrade all around over Wigginton at this point.

There is something going on with Cameron. We knew he would kill rallies, but this is getting silly. If his wrist hurts so much then put him on the DL. That is the excuse that keeps surfacing, but he is kept in for his defense. In my opinion, Jeff Duncan can play more than adequate defense and could not do much worse than Cameron has been at the plate of late. It is more important to have Cameron healthy than to appease Cameron and the fact that he has not been on the DL yet in his career. Maybe he is ok to play and is just slumping, but it certainly does not appear to be the case. If we are going to be in it for the rest of year, then we need to be running on all cylinders. Cameron batting .204 is certainly not running on all cylinders.

This teams looks like it may have chemistry. The problem with chemistry is that when you introduce another component, it may throw everything off. The Expos traded for Floyd back in 2002 and promptly traded him to the Red Sox when they felt that they were better off without him. I do think this team could stand to add another starter, but I really do not want to see any major moves made. I would rather take my chances with this lineup, or a slightly upgraded lineup than have any drastic changes and give up top tier talent from the farm system. Part of the reason that the Mets farm system is highly regarded is because it has a lot of impact players, and if you take away even one of those impact players, it drastically changes things. The bottom line is this. Is the team that we have really much better, in terms of overall skill level, than the 1999 and 2000 Met teams? Absolutely not.

I knew I should not have written anything about Reyes. I was conflicted as to whether I should have written anything and I jinxed it. Reyes sat out because of a sore back that he got from driving. That ranks up there with Sosa sneezing his way onto the DL.