We could dwell on yet another Mets loss, but that's just not our style. So instead, let's take a look at some of the positives from the first month of the season. The team showed some fight. Whether in a game or the season in general, this Mets squad has shown that it will not go down easily. Their comeback win against the Nats evoked memories of Game 6 of the '86 World Series. And when the Mets were 4-11 and tempting us to start watching hockey, they kept their heads up and rolled off enough wins to keep us from searching for the Versus channel.
The stars finally aligned. No, not in the astrological sense, but in the sense that the Mets heavy hitters are FINALLY all healthy in the same time. We have been waiting seemingly forever to see what Reyes, Wright, Beltran and Bay can do together. The early returns were good, at least until Bay screwed it up again by having a baby. But with these four, plus Ike Davis, in the lineup at the same time, the Mets offense has a chance to be pretty good. At least until half of them are traded. Which brings us to...
Jose Reyes. The Mets shortstop had a great April, which I guess could be considered a negative since it might expedite his departure to another team. But after all the injuries and frustrating moments, it's been fun to watch Reyes living up to the hype again. I can't decide if I want him to keep it up so that Sandy Alderson feels the need to re-sign him, or to play worse so that his trade value declines. I'm going to move on now because writing this paragraph is depressing me.
Pleasant surprises. We all like Ike, but nobody expected him to be THIS good so soon. And several of Sandy's dollar store pickups have also exceeded expectations. Chris Young has been the staff ace, Beato and Isringhausen have been great in relief, and Chris Capuano has not been awful.
We got to watch professional caliber players play professional baseball. If nothing else, April was good because we didn't have to watch the usual collection of scrubs. Last season we saw way too much of the likes of Perez, Castillo, Mike Jacobs, Gary Matthews, etc. This season all of them are gone, and some of the players who reminded us of them (Emaus, Boyer, etc.) were shown the door as well.
So don't lose hope yet Mets fans, it's a long way until October. April was not a great month for out team, but warmer and brighter days are ahead. Hopefully in our June review we will be talking about Johan being back on the mound, Reyes and Beltran still being on the team, and the Mets being in the thick of a playoff race.
Until then, drink it up!
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