Two-Face

As this young season has progressed it has been hard to get an accurate reading on exactly how good or bad this Mets team is. We know Ryan Church will come back to earth and we know Angel Pagan will come back to earth - but other than that, what do we really know?

In a perfect world you could argue that Carlos Delgado will bounce back and produce numbers similar to what he did last season. But can you say that with any conviction? His numbers have been steadily declining for two seasons - this may be the year where he hits rock bottom. Would you bet against him putting up a .230/15/50 this season? It doesn't sound too far fetched.

On the flip side one would say that David Wright will come back to earth a little as well. He can't possibly sustain a .344/.453/.721 line for the rest of the season...can he? Aside from the SLG coming down a bit, who is to say he can't? Wright has gotten better each of the last three seasons, who's to say he won't hit over .340 this season pushing 40 HR and a .450 OBP?

And as for Reyes, well, you just can't predict what he's going to give you aside from replay-worthy celebrations when he's on his game. Was last September a fluke or was last April-June a fluke? I'd cast my vote for the former, but who can be sure?

Maine and Perez are solid starters, but you never can be sure when they're going to have that giant meltdown. Pelfrey looks better, but it's much too early to tell. Big Fig has been superb - but can he sustain it for another month until Pedro returns? The one bright spot - as everyone expected - has been Santana. Booing aside, he has been everything he's been billed to be. You knew he was HR-prone, but the brilliance he flashed on Friday night is exactly why Carlos Gomez is patrolling centerfield in Minneapolis right now.

The bottom line is that 4/6 from the Phillies is exactly what we should have hoped for - and it's exactly what we got. Granted, Jimmy Rollins was absent for 4 games and Victorino absent for 3, but the Mets still played better baseball than the Phils for the first two series of the year.

Call me a pessimist, call me a downer, but doesn't something still feel wrong? You just don't know what Mets team is going to show up. The lifeless, uninspired bunch that showed up to play the Brewers last weekend or the energetic, fundamental-executing (aside from Luis Castillo not getting the bunt down in the 9th tonight) group that showed up at Citizens Bank Park this weekend?

And before you shoot back that it just seems that way because the Mets lost 2/3 against Milwaukee and won 2/3 from the Phils, I'd feel the same way if the Mets had lost 2/3 this weekend as well. If you watched both series you could just see the difference in the team. And as someone who is faithful to stats and objective analysis, that is something I realize sounds, well, stupid, but I don't think a fan of this team can deny it.

To throw in a cliche for the sake of cliches, I know it's too early to tell - I just hope that the team we saw from Friday night to about an hour ago shows up with regularity in 2008.