Current Record: 28-21
May Record: 19-9
GB (NL East): 0.5 (Philadelphia)
GB (Wildcard): 1 (St. Louis)

1) I’ve decided that one Citi Field feature I dislike is the 16-foot wall in left field. While it managed to steal four home runs from various right-handed Marlins over a three game series, it pretty much destroyed any chance of fun defensive plays and home run robberies. It also makes the corner a nightmre to see for anyone not in the front row. Weird design decision, but ultimately a small complaint.

2) When Carlos Delgado went down, I figured a trade for Nick Johnson would happen relatively quickly. After all, Jerry Manuel doesn’t seem to have much use for Ryan Church and they could probably have stamped him “Return To Sender” and been done with it. The problem is that Daniel Murphy has turned out to be a much more competent first baseman than left fielder. After that happy discovery, they definitely needed a corner outfielder. Then the shortstop got hurt, and the backup shortstop, and the backup backup shortstop and they were definitely going trade for a middle infielder. Really, people are desperate to make a trade right now. Unfortunately, no one really knows what the Mets need. There’s an injured 36-year-old first baseman who may be out for the year, a set of middle infielders who alternate between injured and slumping, and a few corner outfielders who are either hurt or on the manager’s sh*tlist. There’s no one “fix” deal right now and, if there is, no one knows what it is yet.

3) The more I watch Jerry Manuel, the more I’m having a really hard time getting on board with his management style. He’s a terrible slave to lefty/righty matchups — even if it means pulling your starter with two-out in the fifth against Boston’s 9-hitter. Or yanking your rookie walk machine in the sixth inning for someone with some “righty pop”. I can only describe the feeling watching him seemingly pinch hit at random as “frustrating.” I could also use the term “overmanager.” It stinks and I don’t like it.

4) More on Manuel. I really wish he’d give Daniel Murphy a solid two week run at 1B to see where he is and what he can do. Murphy’s average peaked at .320 in early May then he went 0-for-Atlanta and was immediately turned in to pinch hitter on their west coast trip. Since the 1B experiment started (which went surprisingly well defensively as his natural position is 3B) he struggled with a terrible 1-for-16 stretch. He responded with an insane 5 RBI, 3-for-4 night with a walk, double, and HR. Manuel’s response the next day — bench him in the name of the platoon match-up. I don’t understand what this terrible platoon situation is supposed to do. The team’s never going to know what they have alternating Murphy and Fernando Tatis every day. Neither guy can get in a rhythm and one gets pulled for the other in the name of a match-up at random points in the game.

5) Even more on Manuel. Trap Jaw Castro was 1/2 of of the Jerry Manuel Alpo Dog House List (yeah, it has a sponser. What doesn’t?). When Brian Schneider came off the DL, the Mets’ roster move was to ship Trap Jaw to the White Sox for Triple A pitcher Lance “Best Porn Name In Mets History” Broadway. I really hated this move for a few reasons. 1) The Mets inexplicably think Schneider is better defensively than Castro, which is mostly untrue. 2) They bit on Triple A call up Omir Santos remarkably fast. Santos endeared himself with everyone with an incredible knack for getting clutch hits in big spots. However, his career line in the minors is .258/.303/.348 in 8 YEARS of minor league games. He’s been great, but something tells me the league is going to figure him out. 3) I loved using the term “Trap Jaw” and I like sending joke texts to Hulse like “he got his jaw in to one” when Castro hits a home run. 4) There is no earthly way that Brian Schneider doesn’t take at least one more trip to the DL. I really hope there’s another catcher in the system. 5) We kept Schneider whose current line is .185/.313/.222. On the upside, he’s tremendously injury-prone and 32 years old. Great for catchers.

6) The other half of the Jerry Manuel Alpo Dog House List is Ryan Church. This is still one I don’t understand and one Manuel won’t expound on despite Mike Francesa’s weekly quiz on the matter. Church’s trip to the DL finally caused the Mets to pull the trigger and call up Tiffany’s Crown Jewel Prospect Fernando Martinez. F-Mart’s book is a mediocre defensive corner outfielder with a huge bat. So far — not so much. He went 0/9 to start and then 4/11 since. This isn’t the guy the team’s planning on going to war with for the rest of the season since the plan was to keep him in Triple A all year. Injuries forced him up. If he shows even flashes of competence, Church’s ticket out of town will likely be punched. I mean, why wouldn’t Church be in the Alpo Dog House? He only hit .350 through April until Manuel inexplicably started giving his playing time to Gary Sheffield. I suppose Church may (rightly) have complained about this which apparently punched his ticket out of town in favor of a 42-year-old man who will be gone at the end of the year. Sweet work! As for Martinez, if he gets sent back down soon he’ll be remembered for not running out a pop-up which ended as a 2-3 put out instead of a two-base error.

7) I’m not quite sure what it is about the Mets 8th Inning that turns pitchers in to simpering shells of themselves. I don’t understand it. If I were to include the first day of June in this posting, JJ Putz’s last 29 pitches have led to five hits, three walks, and six earned runs. That’s not good. And I have to listen one more time to him talk about “the adrenaline just isn’t the same in the 8th as it is in the 9th” I’m going to throw something — possibly with better location than Putz currently can. This stupid “closer mentality” has been talked up so much by so many people that the pitchers themselves believe it. Full credit to Ron Darling for finally saying what most of us have been thinking: “At some point, you have to go out there and get three outs, adrenaline or not.” If Manuel wants Putz to find “the adrenaline” then he should start pitching him in the 6th or the 7th when the starter has walked two and had them sacrificed over to 2nd and 3rd. Is one out with two in scoring position adrenaliney enough for you closer guy? Or maybe he can start using the Billy Wagner excuse: “unless you put me in at the beginning of the inning for exactly three outs in the ninth with no one on base, I will walk two and give up a 500 foot home run.”

8) Every team deals with injuries. All a team can hope for is that they fall at the right time. This three week stretch was truly the best time for this many guys to be hurt. Any stretch which features the Nationals, Pirates, and Marlins is just peachy for most of your starters to be out. This last game against Pittsburgh, there were TWO starters from the opening day line-up. Everyone else is either hurt or infected with Pigflu. If it keeps up through June, the team’s totally screwed. Two series with the Yankees, four games against the Cardinals, Tampa, Milwaukee, and two series with the Phillies. The only “break” is a series in Baltimore. And, of course, due to the nonsense that is MLB scheduling, the Phillies draw two series against Toronto and none against the Yankees. Awesome.

9) I gave Omar Minaya a lot of crap in the offseason. I need to take it back. As it turns out, not signing Manny was an excellent idea. Also Alex Cora, Gary Sheffield, and Livan Hernandez have turned out to be tremendous pick-ups. Cora comes off the DL to fill in for still-injured Jose Reyes and has been filling in for Luis Castillo’s absurdly broken knees. Gary Sheffield has been perfectly content and happy to be a four or five day a week player and has been terrific filling in as an every day player through the corner outfield injuries. Livan Hernandez has been, well, Livan Hernandez. In May he threw one trainwreck, three six or seven inning quality starts, and 127-pitch, 1-run complete game. These were the type of pick-ups that flew under the radar in the offseason but have been huge.

10) I’m holding out hope that the team doesn’t make a panic trade. The problem I’m having with that hope is the team seems very willing to ship out guys who the manager doesn’t like without asking questions. I’m worried that this will lead to something like a “Ryan Church and Daniel Murphy for Nick Johnson or Adam Dunn” trade when it’s clearly a bad idea in the long run. Worse, I’m expecting Omar to be on the phone to Cleveland sometime soon to find the asking price of a Cliff Lee/Mark DeRosa deal. While I don’t necessarily think that either of those guys would be bad for the Mets, the idea of Omar pulling off another Bartolo Colon deal (ironically with one of the same players) with the Mets’ prospects isn’t really something that gives me the warm fuzzies.