Turnbow’s terrible. One good year (60 good IP) in a sub-par career. Having said that, no way he pitches a full season to a 10+ ERA.

Better example: Aaron Heilman. If the Mets gave up on him 5 days ago, he would have left with an ERA of almost 6.50. It’s dropped a point already. Where will he wind up? I personally think he’ll turn it around and finish around 3.50. But even if you disagree, I think we all realize it’s unlikely he’d pitch a full season to a 5+ ERA.

Anyone who has three good pitches is going to be a starter, making relievers less capable of retiring guys from both sides of the plate.

you can’t un-win games you’ve already won

Remember this team was terrible last year and was still in contention and damn near ran away from the pack if not for the event -which- must- not- be- named.

This team that had NO fifth starter, and had no offensive production outside of Wright and Beltran, who was carried for two weeks after the all-star break by LASTINGS MILLEDGE was still on its way to winning the division.

Now what does that say? Its says that the rest of this division SUCKS! The Phillies and the Braves are not even near what has been advertised. The Braves may have a stellar bullpen when Smoltz and Mike Gonzalez returns but their rotation will have
Hudson, who has mysteriously lost velocity in two starts, Glavine, Jurrjens, Carlyle, Bennett or Reyes. YAWN!

The Phillies have no rotation and the bottom 4 of their lineup only hits Met pitching.

One of these teams need to make a move but none of them have player to move. The Braves could have moves Schaffer, their top prospect, but he got caught with HGH. the Phillies don’t have a prospect better than Fernando Martinez and with or without HGH Schaffer isn’t rated better than Martinez. Heck, the Phillies don’t have a prospect better than Niese or Carp right now in my eyes.

The bottomline is that the Mets still have the talent to run away and they will get their chance to do so. Alou is back this weekend. Pedro will be back before Phil Hughes will and if Castro is out Casanova is decent.

The mental makeup is a different story. It seems like these players expect a decent record to expunge their faults from last year. It won’t. They are 4-2 vs. the Phillies and 2-3 vs the Braves and yet it doesn’t settle me. I think thats MY issue. I don’t trust the Mets but I know that they are more than able to take this League.

It is possible that the team may need a change in managers. But if they go after a Showalter or a Larry Bowa, I can’t say I would feel any different because the managers that are available haven’t proven they can win World Series. They are just Willie Randolphs with different philosophies.

Personally, Larry Bowa might make me vomit and Showalter is a Yankee. He and Bob Watson are responsible for the Yankee success and I don’t like either.

That said. Here is my plea to my fellow Met diehards.
Give this team 50-70 games before we determine who they truly are as a team. Clearly RF and C has been upgraded from last season. Our bench is better with Chavez and Pagan. We have a chance to have Alou and Pedro for the majority of the season. Billy Wagner is lights-out. The emergence or Ryan Church could push Delgado to seventh in the order for crying out loud!!! DELGADO COULD HIT SEVENTH!!!

Much is left to determine. Will Mat wise push Heilman to the 5th inning? Will Show continue to make up for last year? Sanchez is back and Eddie Kunz continues to perform in the minors and we could see him in the pen in August.

A lot could go wrong and a lot could go right. But right now we’ve played terrible and we are 14-12. Lets see what they are made of over the next two months before we jump off the bridge because neither the Braves or the Phillies are good enough to run away with this division while we struggle.