A tale of two teams

Have you ever seen a baseball team with multiple personalities? Look no further than the 2010 New York Mets. I honestly can't remember the last time I saw a team take 5 out of 6 from the defending National AND American League champions... to then go on the road and drop 2 out of 3 to a Brewers team that is just pathetic at home. Do the Mets have some sort of identity crisis? I mean, they go through these stretches where they play good, fundamentally sound baseball and look like they can compete. As soon as the fans become cautiously optimistic, they have a road trip and erase all their good will. Last year, everyone said that Citi Field was in their heads (in a bad way) and now it seems like that is the only place in which they can win. Their saving grace right now is that no one in the National League East has been able to run away with the division because everyone is having problems.

When the Mets started a three game series with the Padres last night, I was borderline optimistic. If there is another ball park where the Mets can play "Citi Ball" successfully, it would be Petco Park. Except for the fact that someone forgot to tell Hisanori Takahashi. I never expected Takahashi to be a starting rotation savior. I was hoping to ride his hot streak a little longer just to bridge the gap until Jon Niese can return to the rotation. But Takahashi and the bullpen had a meltdown last night en route to an 18-6 beat down by the Pads (by the way, the Padres and Nationals are tied for first place on my "Surprise teams in the NL" list. Did anyone see EITHER of these teams coming? I know I didn't).

There were some highlights - down 6-1, the Mets battled back in the fifth inning, helped by a Jose Reyes triple that scored two runs. And Jerry found a situation to use Oliver Perez, the stubborn SOB who apparently would rather be used irregularly as a mop up man than accept an assignment to Triple A and be able to actually HELP the team.

I'm done with Perez and his antics. I wish the Mets weren't on the hook for so much money from that damn contract, because I would send this guy packing in a heartbeat. Apparently Ollie is one of those guys that just wants to collect his paycheck regardless of performance. I guess that's ok... but for the love of everything that is good and holy, WHY does he have to put the rest of his team and the fans through this? Doesn't this guy have any sense of professional pride? He's an embarrassment right now and I can only hope he is committing career suicide by refusing to go to Triple A and work out his issues.

The Mets send Big Pelf to the mound tonight, which automatically gives me hope for the game. With a win tonight, the Mets will still have a chance to take the series - and might actually win back to back road games for the first time this year in the process.