In the top of the seventh, noted Met killer Pat Burrell opened with a base hit. What followed was Bobby Parnell deftly turning a one-run lead in to a two-run deficit before recording an out. What followed that was the rest of the bullpen giving up another two earned runs as the offense, as per normal, folded up shop and went home in the eighth and ninth inning as it only took seven batters for the Rays reliever to record six outs. I didn’t see this because after the Bobby Parnell debacle, I decided it would be more fun and less frustrating to watch golf than it would be to watch this game. In fact, I didn’t even know there had been a rain delay until I checked the box score.

The team is unwatchable. They don’t come from behind. I think in two months of Citi Field they have had 2 walk off wins. One was April 17th. The other was a walk off walk at the hands of the vaunted Braves bullpen. Discounting K-Rod, they have exactly one reliever who can consistently get outs. And, unfortunately, he can only get lefties out. Also, as it turns out, he can’t pitch every day. Pedro Feliciano has appeared in 40 of the Mets 67. I can’t even be upset that one of the last games was on his shoulders, because he’s done his job more times than not this year. Against Philadelphia and the Yankees, he gave the Mets a free pass through the tough lefty parts of their line-ups in late innings. In neither case could the team come back. It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad. He finally took a loss (his 2nd of the year — in 40 appearances, mind you) in Baltimore.

As I might have mentioned earlier in the season, this team’s only problem was not the bullpen. It was a chronic inability to hit baseballs late in games. This has not changed. They no longer have the bullpen as an excuse to fall back on for being .500. Through Sunday’s game, the bullpen has posted a better ERA (3.59 to 4.61), a better WHIP (1.41 to 1.39), a better K/9 (7.3 to 6.4), and a better K/BB ratio (1.84 to 1.78) then the starters. Yet they’ve taken 16 losses as compared to the starters’ 17. The bullpen works under an insane amount of stress considering if they give a up a run, the team loses.

I’m curious — what is the new excuse when the bullpen is no longer the boogeyman?

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.

A running theme as I watch these games is my desire for Manuel to just leave the line-up alone for two weeks, stop all the ridiculous platooning, and see where we are. This is why all the trade talk is crap. We really have no idea what we need because no guys, save for Wright, Beltran, and Castillo, are guaranteed a daily line-up spot. Let them go and see what we have. Maybe, just maybe, we have all the bats we need.

Regardless, I can’t complain. This is the baseball team I’ve wanted to see all year — resilient under pressure, doesn’t fold up shop in hard times, fights from behind, and plays with guts. Having a rock-solid bullpen pitching well under pressure. In no world would I have been confident in Billy Wagner to nail that down. I had full confidence in K-Rod.

Great game.

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.

1) I can’t tell you how refreshing it was to see the Mets fans taking a huge chunk of Fenway Park. The Red Sox fans do this everywhere and it was awesome to see Fenway get a taste. I presume this is mostly because the Red Sox season ticket holders don’t sell their Yankees/Sox tickets, but were perfectly willing to make up a chunk of their ticket fee on this game. It’s a lot of fun when you have a split crowd. The dueling “Let’s Go Red Sox LETS GO METS” chants came across well on TV and the crowd was hot for all three games. Apparently Sox fans got a little douchey at the end — they’re not used to being challenged at Fenway, but after taking 2/3 I’m perfectly happy to here a “Go Home Mets” chant.

2) The ninth inning of Game 2 was the best inning of baseball I’ve seen the Mets play this year. Omir Santos was one of the most unlikely guys on the team to hit a 2-run go-ahead home run in the top of the ninth. In the bottom, the defensive play was some of the best stuff I’ve seen all year. It’s like the defense made a conscious “No Effin Way We’re Losing This Game” decision and played that way. Great, great defense to hold on to the win. And for the record — thank God for video replay. Without it, Santos gets a double, Razor Shines is called for interference against Gary Sheffield, and the game is over. And, here is my question — WTF was Terry Francona arguing? It’s a home run. The interference never happens.

3) Not to pile on David Ortiz but this was the first time I’ve got to watch him for consecutive games. Wow. He was only 1/4th of the way through his swing by the time Santos was throwing the fastball back to Mike Pelfrey. At this point, should there be any approach other than 3 fastballs? Some kind of weird “respect” thing?

4) I now understand the Yankee fans’ absolute hatred of Kevin Youkilis. I didn’t before, but holy crap is he an annoying player to watch. He’s got the Derek Jeter annoying tendency to dive out over the plate and get hit by pitches in the strike zone (and still get a base) and, on top of that, he’s never been thrown a strike in his career — only pitches that he deems “close enough” to swing at. On the other hand, Yankee fans, that’s what everyone other than you thought about Paul O’Neill. Johan Santana telling him to shut the Eff up and take his base is my favorite moment of the year thus far.

5) That said, this last game was going to be Tim Wakefield vs. Tim Redding. This was going to be coin toss. Wakefield could either throw a no-hitter or give up 15 runs. Redding the same. Besides, if you told me the Mets were going to head in to Fenway Park — where it’s generally impossible for road teams to win — and win 2 with 4 starters and 5 backups and injury replacements I would have signed up for it immediately.

6) Manuel taking out Redding in favor of Green in the bottom of the 5th on Sunday lives just on the border of his constant overmanaging. Like… really? Need to pull your starter against the 9-hitter who’s 0-2 with 1K for your 7.36 ERA, 1.9 WHIP reliever? One out before he qualifies for a win? Really? I’m thisclose to starting a wtfjerrymanuel website where we talk about Jerry’s insane managing moves. Could mention pulling Takahashi for Stokes for no good reason, too. Jerry Manuel — where 3 relievers for 1.3 innings happens.

7) What will come first? Dustin Pedroia qualifying for his first free agent contract or Dustin Pedroia wrenching his back and being out for a season. I’m not rooting for that, mind you. Pedroia seems like a good enough dude but my Lord. How long can he keep up that monstrous swing?

8) I’d like to thank Ken Takahashi for dropping the baseball in his wind-up and ticking off an item on the “stuff I’ve never seen in a Major League Baseball Game” checklist.

9) You really take a great defensive shortstop for granted when you have one. These last few games watching pathetic dribblers sneak by Ramon Martinez have been frustrating. The Jason Bay hit in the sixth that scored Pedroia and started the avalanche is an out with Reyes in the lineup. The Alex Cora injury — an incredibly underrated pick-up by Omar Minaya — has turned out to be huge. If one or both of Luis Castillo’s knees explode anytime soon, the Mets are going to be in terrible shape.

10) Speaking of the Alex Cora injury — Daniel Murphy’s surprisingly competent first-base play and the sudden decimation of the middle infield has killed the Nick Johnson trade talks almost as quickly as they arose. The problem is — who the frick are they going to trade for? We already have one of the better utility middle infielders on the DL. We’re going to trade for another? But hey, at least we’ll have 3 healthy catchers come next week.

Turns out –maybe doing this IS jinxing the team.

1) Jerry Manuel was starting to grow on me. His smallball approach wasn’t to the extreme like Willie Randolph’s. Willie would have Luis Castillo sac-bunt Jose Reyes over in the first inning. Recently, though, he’s been showing truly frustrating tendencies. Last week, he used Daniel Murphy, the .320-hitting 3-hitter, to sac-bunt. Later in the game, with men on first and second, he attempted a hit-and-run which ended the inning. Still later, with the bases loaded with 2-out in the ninth, he pulled Trap Jaw Castro (.273/.351) in favor of recent call-up catcher Omir Santos (at the time: .280/.280). Because, you know, when you’re down one in the bottom of the ninth with the bases loaded, you really need a hit instead of a walk. While I really hate being “second-guess-the-manager” guy — it was just terrible all around.

2) If the whole financing for Citi Field falls through, I suggest renaming it Triples Park. There were 12 triples hit there in April — five more than any other ball park. Pretty much anything into that chaotic right field corner or the ridiculous 415-foot alcove in deep center has a shot at being a triple. In one game against the Marlins, there were three in one game. I expect at least two inside the park HRs from Jose Reyes this year.

3) On the other hand, it looks like it’s going to play like Petco and AT&T for home runs. It’s currently running at just about 0.75 HR/G and, unless the wind patterns in the stadium change, it’s going to stay there.

4) I’m very much over the New York Media’s overfascination with David Wright whenever he’s in a slump. This is the second time Wright’s had a bad April — but because “Wright Doesn’t Hit In The Clutch” has become part of The Storyline it’s now accompanied by trade talks. Meanwhile, Jose Reyes’s had a ghastly April, batting just .258/.336/.351 with only +2 net stolen bases. There is nary a mention of this. They also rarely mention that a huge part of both collapses was Jose Reyes’s inability to hit baseballs in September. This year, it’s carried over in to April. People: Wright’s in a slump. It happens to baseball players. It happened to Derek Jeter for all of 2008. Wright will come out of it. Stop being insane Jets’ fans.

5) Meanwhile, am I the only one who gets the irony of Mets’ fans complaining about Daniel Murphy’s left-field defense when they wanted to spend $100M on Manny Ramirez? And they wanted Manny to cover the 54 acres of left field in this new stadium? Settle down. The Mets will live with his defense for exactly one season. Then Wright moves to first and Murphy goes back to playing his natural third base position.

6) Dear Mets Fans: Please stop trying to trade Carlos Beltran. I know he struck out once in 2006 and you have translated this into him being the world’s worst center fielder and a terrible human being. Could we possibly redirect the anger to the bottom of the sixth after Endy Chavez had just made what would have been the greatest catch in NLCS history? When they had the bases loaded with one out and Jose Valentin struck out swinging and Endy Chavez popped out to center? Guys, we’re not trading him. The thought of trading him is unfathomably stupid. It’s almost as stupid as Jets trading Chad Pennington when all they needed was a running back who didn’t suck. Please, look around the league and find me the better center field option. YOU HAVE THE BEST CENTER FIELDER IN THE LEAGUE PATROLLING 114 ACRES OF CENTER FIELD. STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT.

7) Credit to Omar Minaya — great work on the bullpen. A 3.12 ERA and .664 OPS-against in 78 innings. Yet they still have credit for 6 of the losses. It’s almost like… almost like… they weren’t the entire problem. I know it’s crazy but — it kind of seems like the team stops hitting late in games and it wasn’t all entirely the bullpen’s problem. Crazy-talk!

8) I’m not going to get too hung up on the starting pitchers quite yet. Johan Santana has been incredible and he’s already been screwed out of two wins. The first when Daniel Murphy dropped a fly ball, which led to 2 unearned runs, which lead to a 2-0 nothing loss and the second being a seven inning, two run gem blown by JJ Putz and the team’s chronic inability to score runs late in close games. Livan is being Livan — mediocre starts followed by the occasional trainwreck. John Maine (1-2, 5.40) and Mike Pelfrey (3-0, 6.00) are both seeing their ERAs start to fall after really bad starts. On the other hand:

9) Oliver Perez has been very very bad. Epically bad. Nearly Chien Ming-Wang bad. Ollie’s services were retained this year for one reason — the Mets face a lot of teams with lefty power and he baffles lefties. Unfortunately, he didn’t make it out of third inning in his first start against the Phillies. Here’s why I’m not worried quite yet — the WBC. The dude barely got any work in March. The Mets need to fake an injury like the Yankees did with Wang and send him to Buffalo for some starts. He needs spring training — not panic. We knew this was coming. Besides; five runs in Citizens Bank Park really isn’t all that bad. If four consecutive walks hadn’t led to one of the runs, I’d almost consider the start a good one.

10) It could be much worse, I suppose. I would have signed for 3 games under .500 if I’d been told all starters not named “Johan” would have an aggregate ERA over 6.00. Really, April after the WBC is a wash. ERAs are off the board, batters haven’t developed timing yet, and pitchers are all dealing with injuries. As long as no one runs up a 10-game lead while everyone’s still warming up, the season might as well be starting between now and Memorial Day.

2) I’m glad to see that Jeff Kent’s moustache didn’t retire when Jeff Kent did. I don’t know what kind of contract it got to adorn Rick Ankiel’s upper-lip but, whatever it was, it wasn’t enough. We here at the Moustache love moustaches.

3) Apparently Dave Duncan Spray Charts ™ are some kind of awesome information. The Mets batters were played as perfect as one can hope in this game. Almost nothing got through. While the 2009 Marlins are going to be a case-study on exactly how overrated defense actually IS on a baseball team, the Cardinals apparently know where you’re going to hit it before you do. Tough to beat that.

4) It’s good to see the offseason didn’t take away the Mets’ ability to get owned by mediocre righties.

5) Yeah, Dan Murphy’s errors are our problem. Let’s pay no attention to the fact our starters can’t go one night without walking five or more. Let’s worry about Murphy’s dropping of the occasional fly ball.

Final Thoughts: While I live by the rule to never get amped in either direction in April, the first couple weeks are troubling. The team really isn’t in sync and, as I mentioned, the Bullpen was not the end all and be all of the Mets problems.

The thing I don’t understand — how can you look at the box score of this game and lay the game at Murphy’s feet? First, Oliver Perez was given a four-run lead going in to the bottom of the fourth inning and proceeded to walk the bases full in consecutive innings and squandering a four-run lead before finally getting the hook after 4.66. Or how about his reliever walking in the tying run? Following that, Both Carlos Beltran and Luis Castillo are to blame for Beltran’s having a free run at home plate and deciding that keeping his uniform clean was more important than getting down and scoring. And why is no one asking where the hell Luis Castillo, the on-deck batter, was when he should have been standing near the plate telling Beltran GET DOWN.

But yeah, a hard-hit ball that Murphy charged and slipped on wet grass is totally the entire problem. It’s amazing what this fanbase decided

1) Nelson Figureoa vs. Jeff Suppan has the chance to be the polar opposite of the two-hour gem that was Johan Santana vs. Josh Johnson. The 60 pitches in the first inning seem to indicate that this will be the case. I’m going to assume we’re not signing up for a 7-inning bridge to Putz/K-Rod.

2) So, has anyone noticed that it’s Carlos Delgado’s walk year? I think he has. Not getting off to a voluntary slow start this year to get his manager fired. Should I not say that? Oh well.

3) I never watch spring training games. The players don’t take them seriously so I see no reason why I should. I’m saying that because I’ve never seen this Santos catcher play. But, hearing about how good he was in the Spring coupled with a double and gunning down a base-stealer yesterday — he’s fun to watch so far.

4) This stadium seems like it’s going to be the polar opposite of that other part over in the Bronx. In practice, every pop fly to right field in Yankee Stadium is flying over the fence. In this stadium, players have to hit it a ton just to fly out to deep right.

5) I was about to make a huge deal about the fans at the game not knowing what’s going on and how this is what you get when you have douchebags who go to games not knowing when it’s OK to touch a ball in the field of play and how, no matter what we may think of the city, that stuff never happens in Fenway Park. And this is the second time I’ve seen a fan who interfered with a ball in the field of play not ejected by be Citi Field security. Really? This is the thing we’re going to be lackluster about?

6) Watching Jeff Suppan own this team is now officially frustrating. What is it about him that terrifies the Mets to their very soul? His stunning mediocrity? Ugh.

7) The one guy who didn’t get the memo? Omir Santos. 2/3 with a double and a triple? Plus a terrible-luck bullet to Bill Hall in what could have been a game-tying RBI but was instead an unassisted double play ball.

8) I go back and forth on whether stolen bases are worth it. But I’m curious as to why they’ve either shut Jose Reyes down from stealing bases or whether he’s just not feeling it so far this year. The bottom of the 7th with 1-out with Murphy seemed like an obvious spot for Reyes to swipe a base and it seems like it wasn’t even in the playbook. My Mancrush eventually popped a cheap bloop over the shortstop so it was mostly moot, but I wonder what’s going on there. Even in the bottom of the 9th, you’d think they’d give Reyes a bit of a chance to take 2nd during Murphy’s at-bat to take the double play out of order, but they had him swinging early and he popped out to shortstop.

9) In a move that’s sure to be 2nd-guessed on the radio tomorrow, Manuel did abandon the sac-bunt with Fernando Tatis up and men on 1st and 2nd with no outs. Didn’t work out. Then Santos lined a bullet at Bill Hall for an unassisted double play to end the inning. Things didn’t go according to plan there.

10) Note to Luis Castillo — the bunt-hit doesn’t surprise infielders when it becomes your go-to play.

Final Thoughts: Not going to make too big a deal about this loss. Quality start from the guy who’s going to be the spot-starter/longman after the Angels almost certainly re-claim Darren O’Day. This gets filed under the “Jeff Suppan inexplicably owns the Mets” file. And they took the series. Really, they could even let Pelfrey skip another start because the rotation spot will come up again against the Nationals. Weird little road trip next week as the Mets go to St. Louis and come right back home for another six-game homestand that starts their first real run through the division. They may as well give Pelfrey the rest here an save him for the Braves.