The Arbitrary ChuckJerry

The Mets scored 10 runs yesterday and Mike Piazza was 0 for 4. That is why the Mets have a chance to compete. In the past three years the Mets success has been tied solely to the success of Piazza, who's not been great over that stretch. Now they can produce outside of Piazza, which they've been doing over this entire season. Since their 0-5 start they have gone 10-3, lifting them 2 games over .500. Pretty impressive for a team that has had confidence issues over the last couple years.

I think Piazza will relax soon and realize that he is no longer the linchpin of this offense, and that will allow him to be successful again. Beltran has been great in the young season, as has Pedro. Not to mention the huge contribution Doug Mientkiewicz has made on defense and offense. Victor Diaz and Chris Woodward, guys I had never even heard of before three weeks ago, are making big hits and fitting in well. Jose Reyes seems healthy and consistent and David Wright is clearly solid at 3rd base. Cliff Floyd has a bunch of big hits too. Their offense is pretty potent.

If the pitching can just be consistent, they can compete to win the division. Let's assume Pedro will be great and Glavine will be good. All the other pitchers are question marks. Heilman has looked great and then terrible in back to back starts. Jay Seo looked good, but also tends to be inconsistent. Zambrano is the same. Benson is hurt. The bullpen is not phenomenal, and Looper has blown more saves than he's converted so far this year.

What they've got going against them is their division. All 5 teams I think are very equally matched. At the moment they are all within 3 games of each other and will probably all stay that way. They play each other all season, so none of them will have the opportunity win the wild card outside of winning the division since they'll all just beat up on each other.