No. Pelfrey wasn’t as good as he pitched earlier this season and he certainly isn’t as bad as he pitched last night. The Diamondbacks smacked him around, no doubt, but he didn’t get much help from his defense either. Keep in mind that’s always an issue with Pelfrey, who generally pitches to contact.
Pelfrey is the “head case” du jour on the Mets’ roster, so everyone will extrapolate and psychoanalyze and everything else. And yeah, pitching is both a physical and mental pursuit, and for all I know Pelfrey’s struggling with the latter half right now. But the hiccup, whatever it may be, more likely requires a mere adjustment and not any sort of massive overhaul. It’s hardly like he’s throwing every pitch to the backstop.
Pelfrey’s struggles have been examined in detail by Eno Sarris at Amazin’ Avenue and Joe Janish at Mets Today. No one’s crying doomsday. These things happen. Pelfrey has been bad, but will be good again.
The tone on the Internet and in the papers has turned to desperation and outright vitriol because the Mets have lost seven of their last nine. Deep breaths. Teams struggle. If you believed the Mets were good enough to contend last week, a few losses shouldn’t change anything.
Of course, there are roster moves all over the place the team could undertake to improve its chances of winning, and those are important.
Unless Rod Barajas proves he can hit anytime soon, Josh Thole should probably be catching until he proves he can’t.
Raul Valdes appears to be a better pitcher than Fernando Nieve and perhaps steathily one of the better pitchers in the Mets bullpen. Nieve, not Valdes, should be dispatched if the Mets can’t bring themselves to cut bait on Ollie Perez, which they inevitably won’t. Yes, it will leave them with three lefties in their bullpen, but Valdes has been better against righty hitters in his small sample.
But the whole Perez thing is a different issue for a different post, and a bridge we’ll cross when we come to it.
For the first time in over a year, the Mets have Carlos Beltran, Jose Reyes and David Wright in the same lineup. Jason Bay will eventually hit. Angel Pagan is still really good. Luis Castillo can at least get on base. Ike Davis will smash some more homers.
There’s just no way the Mets are as bad as they’ve looked for the past week. Starting pitching may prove to be the problem everyone thought it would be before the season started, but the offense should soon pick up some of the slack. The team might benefit by adding an arm, but again, that’s another blog post for a time when heads are a bit cooler.
Tedquarters 
Why wait until heads are cooler when we can panic NOW? NOW NOW NOW!
Good post ted,
truthfully posts like this were what initially made me a fan of your writting and that continues. You do a good job of keeping things in a level perspective, when things are going both good and bad. While other writters are either putting the mets in the world series after a hot streak or calling for a roster overhaul after a cold spell, you keep it in perspective if what’s really going on and how things are likely to even out eventually.
You are kind if like the Jerry Manuel of sports bloggers/writters. That’s a compliment btw.
Anything to do in reference to Jerry Manuel is not and never will be a compliment. That guy could not manage his way out of a paper bag.
Ted, I hope it doesn’t turn out this way, but this series is turning into another team the Mets can’t, but should beat series. I mean come on, it’s the DBacks, who are usually known for their pitching which pretty much ended when Webb went out for the season. They have a good offense, but still the last couple of seasons the Dbacks have been considered the Pirates,Nationals,Royals, Orioles of their division.
There is no way you could agree that Beltran looks good in the outfield, which besides being a big bat in the lineup, is his bread and butter. If you have a wall that high in centerfield why run all the way to it if you know the ball is going to bounce off it and away from you.There is no way the Beltran now, will ever be the Beltran of old.
Tal’s hill in Houston, was one of the greatest plays I’ve ever seen Beltran make because he made it look so routine. So we will never see that again, because he will not be as smooth as he was in the past.
Look, I might be in the minority here, but to let Jason Bay play over Francouer is insane. When the Mets got Francouer they knew he was a streaky hitter and that falls on the HITTING COACH, If the guy isn’t hitting as a hitting coach you fix it.
I like Jason Bay as much as the next fan, he brings more than any left fielder the Mets have had since Cliff Floyd to the table. However, just because you sign a guy to a big multi year contract doesn’t mean he’s exempt. Francouer is a free agent at the end of the season if I’m not mistaken, but someone along with Castillo, Perez, Maine, will have to go, because you cannot have four must play every day outfielders on the Mets.
You seriously believe that its “insane” to play Bay over Frenchy? Frenchy has a career .736 OPS, including a career .310 OBP. This year he is sporting a .675 OPS, including a .296 OBP.
The year before we traded for him (2008), he had a lower OPS than Luis Castillo, who was being booed by many of the same fans who now like Frenchy.
I think we can all agree that Bay is having the worse year of his career as of now. Yet, his OPS this year is .769, which is nearly 100 points higher than Frenchy’s and his OBP is .354, which is 58 points higher than Frenchy’s. And since Bay’s career OPS of .885 is 149 points higher than Frenchy’s career mark of .736, who do you expect to turn it around and have a better second half?
Water always finds it level. And that’s why Bay will eventually hit and that’s also why whenever Frenchy has a 3 week hot streak, you just know that two months of suckitude is on its way.
Omar Minaya/Pagan/Castillo/Perez/Maine/Thole/Mejia/or Tejada/Martinez for Number two pitcher/a every day second baseman with a good glove/relief pitching and some rosin bags and G2 Gatorade, Because for Minaya, Castillo, and Perez the Mets won’t get much in return, but it’s a package deal. Hey it works on MLB 2010 the Show, just not with GM’s unfortunately.