The weekend couldn’t have started any better. I couldn’t find someone to go out with, so I instead decided to watch the game at home. It was just as well. The Mets and the Yankees playing AL baseball featuring Livan “Full Count” Hernandez and Joba “Fuller Count” Chamberlain guaranteed three things. 1) The Yankees would be in the bullpen by the fifth (they were). 2) The Mets would need all the offense that bullpen would provide (they did). And 3) The game wouldn’t be over until after 11 pm (it wasn’t).

The consensus was they had to steal one of the first two games and then they’d be a shoo-in to beat AJ Burnett with Johan Santana on Sunday and take the series. I thought differently. I thought the Mets had to keep up with Joba and the pen on Friday — then rely on the Yankee tendency to be flummoxed by pitchers they’ve never seen to steal the win on Saturday. This would make the Santana’s start less important. There was no way Santana was going to have a good game in the Bronx. Anyone who’s paid attention this year would know it. Santana gets two fly balls to every one ground ball. Fly balls to right in the new Yankee Stadium go out. Santana doesn’t throws balls (to a fault, really) and has started pitching to contact in Yosemite National Citi Field. Counter-intuitively, the game with the best pitcher was the one with the worst odds of winning. That park was not going to hold fly balls. They needed to steal the first two. And it went according to plan.

Almost.

For 9 and 5/6 innings, the Mets played a great game. Then Luis Castillo dropped a ridiculous fly ball and Mark Texeira, earning those “gamer” and “plays the game the right way” tags, scored from first. The Mets lost a terrible game. The fans freaked out. Calls for Luis Castillo’s head were plentiful. On Facebook, I suggested he should light himself on fire. Yankee fans celebrated. Some even had the stones to call it a good win. In reality, the Yankees lost five consecutive games to their division rival and their crosstown rival and then did what the Yankees do — unleashed a dozen runs on an unsuspecting pitcher to kinda/sorta hide their pitching deficiencies. They did it with the Orioles in the first series this season (5-10, 5-7, 11-2), to the Tigers (11-0) following their first sweeping in Boston, and to the Rangers (12-3) after dropping a home series to the Phillies. Which is fine. As the Rangers proved last year, scoring a lot of runs with terrible pitching is a perfectly valid way to win a baseball game.

I didn’t listen to WFAN today. I knew it would be a predictable day of calls to trade half the team and releasing Luis Castillo. Basically, an overreaction to something that really isn’t all that bad. Just magnified because it was against the Yankees.

Castillo made a terrible error. It’s no worse or forgivable than any lollipop that loses a game; be it in the fifth, seventh, ninth, or fifteenth. But, as I said in the May wrap-up — the team still doesn’t know what it needs. It’s playing without its opening day shortstop, first baseman, setup man, and two starters. No one is asking for sympathy, but it’s not unreasonable to be satisfied with .500 baseball until players start returning. Anything the Mets do right now — especially trading prospects for a marginal rental — would be nothing more than overreacting to a freakishly bad week. They need to treat Friday as a win in every way but record. In that case, it’s a 3-3 week; par for what was expected in a week filled with the Phillies and Yankees.

This upcoming week is a bit different. Three against the pitiful Orioles with the Mets’ best current line-up (Fernando Martinez in left, Ryan Church in right, Gary Sheffield at DH) followed by a ten-game home-stand in which they MUST go 6-4 to make up for Friday’s loss. Taking the Orioles’ series and a 6-4 homestand is not unreasonable. That’s 8-5 through a week where the Phillies will be playing the Rays, Blue Jays, and Orioles.

I’d be lying to say I don’t have concerns about the team’s playoff caliber. But, as previously mentioned, I still don’t know what, if anything, they need. Sending a group of prospects to the Nationals for 1.5 years of Adam Dunn would be a panic move. Sending the remaining farm system to Cleveland for Cliff Lee and Mark Derosa would be a terrible idea. Cliff Lee has to come back to Earth eventually and the idea that Mark Derosa answers anyone’s prayers is idiotic. Besides, the claim that Indians are even going to sell at 6 games back is itself dubious.

Sad they dropped the series to the Yankees? Sure. Happy they’re playing .500 ball missing their starting shortstop and their only true power threat? Absolutely. But the Mets aren’t at the point where it’s time to make a panic trade. WFAN callers seem to think “big bats” are plentiful and free.

They’re not.