Game 66 - Rays 10, Mets 6

This is the fourth straight series loss for the Amazing and amazingly, they are actually closer to first place then they were when this down streak started...

It's been a strange season and it's only gonna get worse before it shows any signs of getting better.

I mean, David Wright is batting .349, but there's not a Met fan alive who really looks forward to him at the plate late in a game with a runner on second base...And he's batting about .330 in those situations.

Carlos Beltran leads us in homers with EIGHT, but is slugging .527 and will be taking an MRI on Monday for a knee that if it goes out, you might as well call it a season...

Then again, you would think with all the injuries and the failed experiments like Daniel Murphy (I still think the kid can hit, but they didn't just leave him in the lineup. Instead making sure to get Fernando Tatis some at-bats...Huh?) and the whole corner outfield platoon (Cuz for as great at Sheffield has been, he's batting the same as Ryan Church (.276) although with significantly more RBIs)...

Did I fail to mention Luis Castillo, who's hot start has allowed him to cool off at .270 with a .365 OBP. The 34 runs are decent for a top of the lineup guy, and it's just enough to make us forget that we could have had Orlando Hudson (.315 BA, .388 OBP, 43 runs scored) as late at Valentine's Day for as little as 4 million a year.

But that's revisionist history because that would have meant either finding a taker for Castillo, coming off his worst year ever, or eating the rest of his amazingly lucrative contract for being a slap No. 2 hitter with a pretty good glove at 2B. If you make the move five years ago, no one blinks an eye. Then again, that's when Luis was hitting .296, five points higher than his career average...

Sit on that for a second and then think about the fact that right now, the best three pitchers on the team are Johan Santana, Livan Hernandez and Fernando Nieve...

And the bullpen, which has been top of the heap all year, has gone into the tank with Bobby Parnell hitting the first major rough patch of his young career. The kid was untouchable for a while, but in 2/3 of an inning against the Rays (he pitched in all three games) the flame-thrower allowed six runs (all earned) on seven hits with just one strike out.

He also got roughed up by Baltimore, so it's either the American League can hit the fastball or he's hit his first wall. Either way, his struggles have made the loss of J.J. Putz visiable. Parnell was supposed to pitch the eighth, but now who do you turn to? Sean Green? Feliciano? It's a tough question to answer with anything that breeds confidence...

And with all that negativity, with all the problems and interesting numbers like Wright has 88 hits and 69 strikeouts in 252 at bats. Do the math people, that's 157 over 252, so I can say with certainty that D-Wright will either get a hit or strikeout 3/5 of the time.

Those aren't great numbers and yet, that's what they are and the numbers don't lie. We're still only two games back of first place. Then again, we're going into a series against the Cardinals with Tim Redding starting on Monday Night Baseball on ESPN.

That's the best face for a national showcase, your No. 5B starter.