State of the Season Part I: What's Gone Right, What's Gone Wrong

(Note: A piece about the implications of last night's All-Star Game, "That Time, It Counted", is available immediately following this post. Enjoy.)

So here we are. The Mets are 89 games into their season, 53-36, 1st in the NL East and the All-Star Game is in the rearview mirror.

With the second half of the season still around the corner, however, we here at Y2K are doing what just about everyone else is doing with this midsummer solstice: evaluating the season to this point and making projections for what will happen at points yet to come.

Our midseason coverage will consist of three parts. Part I is your standard look back at the season to date, identify what's gone right/what's gone wrong piece.

Part II is Sip's midseason report card.

Part III is my what to look for in the second half piece.

Parts IV, V, and VI? Could happen, depends on what kind of frenzy we work ourselves into over here. For now though, let's kick things off with old No. 1.

What's Gone Right:

1. The left side of the infield in general, but Jose Reyes in particular.

Coming into the season, the duo of Jose Reyes and David Wright was widely considered one of the most promising left sides of the infield in all of Major League Baseball.

The promise was primarily founded upon two precepts: Wright's breakout season in 2005, and Reyes' sheer athleticism.

Coming into 2006, Wright was the surer commodity. In his first full season in the big leagues, Wright socked 27 homers, batted .306 and knocked in a team-high 102 RBI, becoming the first Met to reach 100 RBI since Mike Piazza drove in 113 in 2000.

So what do you do for an encore? All Wright has done is emerge as a top MVP candidate in the National League on the strength of a record-setting first half. In addition to his .316 average and 20 dongs, Wright's 74 first-half RBI gave him the franchise mark for most runs batted in at the All-Star Break.

Tallies alone don't tell the whole story with Wright, who has come up with one clutch hit after another all season long.

But as good as Wright's been, the play of Reyes has been more rewarding to watch.

Reyes dazzled at times in 2005, but his first full season in the pros didn't feature as many eye-popping numbers as Wright's did.

As a matter of fact, the number that many Mets fans latched on to wasn't the 60 bags Reyes swiped (second most in franchise history), but rather his paltry .300 on-base percentage, deemed far too low for the Mets to flourish with Reyes in the leadoff spot.

Fast-forward to 2006 and Reyes is finally delivering on the potential Mets fans first got a feel for in that enchanted summer of 2003. With a .300 avg, .357 OBP, an MLB-leading 39 steals and 75 runs scored, Reyes emerged as the top-of-the-order menace the Mets need him to be and the would-be starting shortstop for the National League All-Star Team.

2. Carlos Delgado (and Julio Franco): How Beltran got his groove back.

It's impossible to quantify just how important it's been for Carlos Beltran to have his good buddy Carlos Delgado on the team. We've been told that Beltran is a guy who prefers to quietly put up big numbers, a guy who shies away from the limelight even as the spotlight shines brightly upon him.

When the Mets acquired Delgado last November, it was noted repeatedly that the Mets hadn't just acquired the middle-of-the-order slugger they had lacked since Piazza's prime ended some time after the 2000 season (either immediately thereafter or following the 2001 season, depending on your perspective), they had acquired the guy who could finally let Beltran be Beltran.

Because one thing was for certain: the guy in centerfield for the Mets in 2005 wasn't the guy the team had doled out $119 million over 7 years for.

Coming off a 38-homer season which he capped with a possibly unprecedented display of postseason dominance, Beltran brought his show to Shea and proceeded to hit the fewest homeruns, drive in the fewest runs, steal the fewest bases, and hit for the lowest average, OBP, and SLG of his entire career save one injury-shortened season in 2000.

Zoom forward to the present and Beltran is riding high with 25 homeruns, 68 RBI, and a .994 OPS. An embarrassing addition to the All-Star Team last year, in 2006, Beltran has been without question the best offensive centerfielder in the National League, if not all of baseball.

In getting to this point, Beltran got by with a little help from his friends. The aforementioned Delgado had a monstrous first 6 weeks as a Met before cooling down considerably thereafter, but by that point the pressure had been taken off Beltran, who never looked back after collecting his first hit of 2006: a pivtoal 2-run homerun in his 10th at-bat of the season.

And speaking of that homerun, who knows how things would have played out for Beltran had he not heeded the urging of Julio Franco and obliged the suddenly-smitten Shea crowd's request for a curtain call?

Hitless and betraying no signs that 2005 was a fluke, Beltran had been booed relentlessly by the home crowds to that point of the season. After the dinger, Beltran had 7 hits in his next 17 at-bats and never looked back.

3. Tom Glavine: The old mule keeps on kicking.

Rotation stability was on the minds of the Mets faithful entering 2006. General Manager Omar Minaya had traded away two middling starters in offseason transacations meant to solidify the team's porous 2005 bullpen, and the burden was on all of the starters to perform.

Unfortunately for the Mets, not many of their starters actually did perform (see below). But there's been at least one who has, Tom Glavine, the man Pedro Martinez dubbed the "old mule" in the final week of Spring Training.

After 2.5 disappointing seasons with the Mets, Tommy Ballgame underwent a transformation in the second half of 2005, thanks in large part to learning how to throw a curveball. No one knew for sure, however, whether Glavine's late-2005 brilliance was simply a temporary resurgence or if it in fact portended a late career renaissance.

Well, the results are in, and Glavine has clearly got his moxie back. The 40-year-old southpaw is 11-2 with a 3.48 ERA on the season, but better yet is that the Mets are 16-3 in his 19 starts.

Flanked by uncertainty on all sides of the rotation at points this season, Glavine has been the rock. The Mets are 17 games over .500 on the year. Take away the games Glavine has started and the Mets are 1 game over .500. Difference maker? Uhh, yeah.

4. The NL East kicks the bucket.

What a difference a year makes. After the final games of the 2005 season were played in early October, every team in the NL East had a record of .500 or better. The Braves and the Phillies were the only really legit teams in the division (based on their records anyway), but the Mets, Marlins, and Nationals each had respectable seasons of their own.

In 2006, not so much. There's one team that's 17 games over .500, that's the Mets, and there are four other teams, the "best" of which is 7 games under the break-even mark.

It's really remarkable how bad the rest of the division is on the whole, but the Philadelphia Phillies are particularly astounding to me. There is so much talent on that team that I hardly know how it's possible for them to be doing this poorly. Sure, their pitching sucks, but 7 games under? Jesus.

5. That 9-1 road trip.

Who would've guess that a 10-game road trip would prove the turning point of our season, the point at which we quit doing our season-long moonwalk between being 8 to 12 games over .500 and emerged as the unquestioned leaders of the NL East?

Not me, that's for sure. Not only do the Mets (like many east coast teams) traditionally struggle on the west coast, but we were up against some pretty tough competition. Out west it was the Dodgers and the D-Backs for the first 7 before heading back east for a jetlagged 3-game set with the Phillies.

Sparked by more first inning runs than I can remember and solid pitching performances from virtually everyone in the rotation, the Mets passed one of the most challenging tests on their calendar with flying colors.

On June 4, the Mets were 33-22, 4.5 games up on the second place Phillies. Eleven days later, the Mets were 42-33, 9.5 up on Philadelphia. Today we're 53-36, 12 games up on the Phils.

That 10-game span was the difference in both our season, and with the Phillies in free fall from that point on, it appears it was the turning point in the season of our closest in-division competitor.

What's Gone Wrong

1. Pretty much everything that happened to the 5th spot in our rotation.

Easily the most glaring weakness on the team, the fifth starter's position has been a black hole since Brian Bannister went on the disabled list in late April.

The story of the Mets' 5th starter thereafter could easily be summed up by noting that Jose Lima has made 4 starts for the Mets, but for the sake of doing this review in good faith, it's worth noting that Alay Soler, Jeremi Gonzalez, and John Maine have thus far failed to provide any answers (although in fairness, Soler showed flashes and Maine has looked fine his last two times out).

The situation got so bad that the Mets called up their prized pitching prospect Mike Pelfrey less than 6 months after signing him to his first professional contract.

At the moment, Pelfrey is the Mets' best internal hope for solidifying the back of their rotation. One way or another, the 5th spot in the rotation was the problem that just couldn't get solved in the first half of 2006.

2. Aaron Heilman loses a step.

Perhaps it was unfair to assume that Heilman would duplicate his success from 2005 this season. He was, after all, a guy who absolutely sucked throughout his career before he came on strong in a reliever's roll last year.

And it's not as if Heilman's season has been uncompromisingly bad. His season recap reads like this: he was good in April (2.63 ERA), OK in May (3.38), and horrible in June (7.43).

Heilman's struggles have allowed other members of the Mets' relief corps (Chad Bradford in particular) to shine, but we all need to keep our fingers crossed that his shakiness was only a temporary thing.

3. Where's the Sandman?

Before signing with the Mets, Billy Wagner had been one of the premier closers of the preceding decade. Since he signed, well, different story.

It's not that Wagner's been bad necessarily, it's just that he hasn't been the "Enter Sandman" worthy closer we thought we had pried away from the Phillies when we inked the guy in early November.

Four blown saves, one very memorable meltdown against the Yankees, and saves typified by putting runners on or allowing ultimately meaningless, but nonetheless nerve-wracking runs to score have been the book on Wagner so far in 2006.

Am I glad the Mets have him? Of course. Has he been the closer I thought he'd be? No.

4. Pedro's health.

Through the first two months of the season, Pedro Martinez was his old brilliant self. But injuries caught up with the Mets ace in June, and Martinez went 2-3 with a 6.23 ERA.

A playoff berth is basically in the bag right now, so at least that much success seems assured for the Mets this season. In order for them to be successful in the postseason, however, they need Pedro to be Pedro.

No one on the Mets, Tom Glavine included, can provide what Pedro can come playoff time -- a dominating, fearless ace for the team to rally behind.

For the Mets to make good on their dreams of a championship, they need Pedro's hip, toe, and whatever else it is to make a full recovery.

5. Those three games in Boston.

Ugh.

Every NL inferiority complex was seemingly confirmed as the Mets got swept by the Red Sox in late June. The Mets didn't just lose three games, they looked absolutely awful in two of those three.

A fine homestand since has made Mets fans forget about their troubles in Boston, but should the Mets be so fortunate as to make the World Series, their showing against one of the best the AL had to offer will undoubtedly be a regular topic of conversation, a memory the Mets, and their fans, would rather soon forget.

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And that about does it, folks. I'm sure there's plenty I forgot to mention so feel free to chime in with your own thoughts on the comment board. Be sure to tune in tomorrow for Part II of our series, courtesy of old Sip.

- A.F.O.M.G.