Meet the mediocrities

This baseball season is not shaping up the way I’d have liked it to, with the brilliant pitching of Johan Santana being wasted again. He is 3-1 in five starts, but has given up just eight earned runs. The Mets have scored just 11 runs for him in those starts, blew a game for him with shoddy fielding and an otherwise spotless bullpen gave one up last night.

The last couple of days for the bullpen haven’t been sterling, but the relievers can be forgiven. It’s not their fault that the Mets find themselves fighting just to reach .500 as the month of April comes to a close. It is the lack of power and clutch hitting — and some dreadful starting pitching aside from Santana (before this week, the starters had trouble putting more than one solid start together in a row).

This is a better team than it is showing and will probably go on a run. But the middle of the rotation must step up — or Omar Minaya has to go out and find another arm.

Author: hankkalet

Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie. View all posts by hankkalet