After a good beginning, Jonathon Niese was lit up and the Mets couldn’t recover, losing the opening game of the series versus the Braves 6-4.

Game Notes

Jonathon Niese was strong until the fourth inning, which would prove to be his last – giving up six runs, with NONE of them being earned thanks to a David Wright throwing error on a possible inning-ending double play. Niese’s final line was four innings, five hits, six unearned runs, three walks and four strikeouts, Jonathon has looked fatigued in the latter half of the season, and he had thrown 92 pitches in his four innings of work.

The bullpen received another good day’s work, with a rare appearance from Sean Green. Mr. Green went two innings, striking out two and walking one. Amazingly, he didn’t look god-awful and his pitches were moving. Manny Acosta, Elmer Dessens and Pedro Feliciano came on to finish the seventh, eighth and ninth innings. Seeing the bullpen being used a lot is good at this point of the year to gauge who may be returning next year (Feliciano? Green? Dessens?) and to see everyone get some work.

The offense had a major outburst in the second inning, all sparked by an Ike Davis walk on a close pitch that lead Braves manager Bobby Cox to get ejected for arguing balls and strikes. Josh Thole would follow Ike with a single to right-center, allowing Ike Davis to get to third. Lucas Duda would knock an RBI single in to score Ike Davis, Jon Niese hit a bloop RBI single and Jose Reyes hit another RBI single. Lucas Duda brought the score to 6-4 with his first MLB home run, an absolute beam to the Pepsi Porch.

Reyes, Carter, Beltran, Wright, Davis and Thole combined to go 1-23 with one RBI, six strikeouts and one walk.

Ike Davis is 11/11 in his K/BB for September. Much better.

Lucas Duda, enormous day. 2-3 with another multi-RBI day. His last two games, 4-7 with four RBI and one strikeout.

Turning Point

The David Wright error was huge. With Derrek Lee and Matt Diaz running, it was almost tailor-made. If Ruben Tejada even managed to turn one out, he could’ve changed the inning.

Game Ball

Beginning to agree with Joe D on game ball’s for losing efforts, but can’t deny Lucas Duda his just-due for his first MLB home run.

On Deck

The Mets will look to tie the series, sending Dillon Gee to the mound as he faces off against Tim Hudson. Game time is 4:10 P.M.

**Update 8-12-10**

Adam Rubin tweets that the Mets have decided to use reliever Sean Green’s final option and keep him at Triple-A Buffalo. Green’s rehab assignment was set to expire. He has a 5.40 ERA in seven appearances with the Bisons.

**Original 8-10-10**

Reliever Sean Green appears close to a return to the Mets.

Green, who is the last remaining player acquired from the Seattle Mariners in the J.J. Putz trade back in December of 2008, has made only one appearance for the Mets this season.

He landed on the DL after a relief appearance in April against the Florida Marlins with what originally was diagnosed as a strained rib-cage muscle. Eventually, it was discovered that Green actually had a cracked rib.

In that one appearance, he pitched an inning struck out one batter, gave up two hits and a solo homerun for a 9.00 ERA.

“Initially they thought it was a strained intercostal — like a strained rib muscle,” Green said Monday, before the Triple-A Buffalo Bisons series opener. “I was down there [in Port St. Lucie] rehabbing that for about three weeks and it wasn’t getting any better, so I asked to get reevaluated and got another MRI and they saw the fracture. It was like a stress fracture. It was about seven to eight weeks off completely from that. It’s been a long process. I had to start over, from scratch.”

Green has returned to his standard low three-quarters arm slot, after going submarine with the Mets this year in spring training. He figured the change to the drastically lower arm angle probably this year resulted in the rib fracture. So what was Heilman’s excuse?

Green is finishing up his rehab start and the Mets are not likely to keep him in the minors and burn up his one-year contract so Green’s return is only days away. More bad news for the Mets who already have a basketball full of problems already.

Green is making $975,000 this season and is arbitration-eligible. There’s always a chance the Mets could trade or nontender him this offseason. But because Green is likely not due a pay raise off a lost season, it would seem reasonable to expect he could remain and be a factor in the 2011 bullpen. Sadly it’s true, despite the fact that NO Mets fan wants Green in the bullpen after what we saw from him last season.

Since joining Buffalo, Green has allowed five runs on nine hits and a hit batter while striking out four in 5 1/3 innings spanning five appearances. Yeah, five appearance, five innings, five runs.

For those of you who don’t like the idea of Alex Cora playing everyday, have no fear as Luis Castillo will be making his return shortly, tweets Andy Martino of the New York Daily News.

Castillo will be playing his final rehab (0-2 in his first game) starts this weekend and will be returning to the Mets in time for the Los Angeles Dodgers series. The Mets have 20 days to activate him.

Mets reliever Sean Green began his rehab Thursday by throwing a scoreless inning for St. Lucie. The Mets now have only 30 days to activate him.

Fernando Tatis was placed on the 60-day disabled list after successful shoulder surgery yesterday. SNY is reporting that he is likely done for the season. I don’t see the Mets resigning him. So he may have had his last appearance as a Met.

When the Mets made their final cuts today, it opened the door for plenty of second guessing from diehard Mets fans and media alike. The Mets never make it easy on themselves…

One of the more peculiar decisions the Mets made in finalizing their 25 man roster today, was deciding to keep reliever Sean Green over some other more worthy options.

In his final tuneup of the season today against the Orioles, Green was as bad as he’s been all spring long. Unable to even complete his inning of work, Green allowed two hits, a walk, a hit batter, and four earned runs including a homerun to Nolan Reimold.

He finishes the spring with a 6.94 ERA and a 1.72 WHIP.

Green was already in jeopardy of losing his bullpen spot even before spring training started mainly because he was so ineffective last season when he blew three saves, lost four games and posted a 4.57 ERA.

He had to go out there and absolutely win himself a job. In my opinion he did not.

Surely the Mets saw the same Green we did, so how did he possibly make the bullpen over Pat Misch or Bobby Parnell or Kiko Calero?

You know what, I can even see Calero going down to build some arm strength, no biggie… But I was still surprised to see Misch (1.38 ERA) cut so early, and then I figured that somehow Raul Valdes (2.04 ERA) would win that final spot today, but it wasn’t meant to be. 

So how did Green pull it off? It wasn’t past performance? It wasn’t his spring performance?

The answer may be money…

Green had minor league options and the Mets could have sent him to Buffalo without the risk of losing him, but because they owed him $980K dollars, the decision was made to keep him on the roster over a more worthy player.

The decision to keep Green wasn’t made with the intention of keeping the player who could help build a better bullpen. Winning had nothing to do with it. This was all about saving a buck.

Bad job Omar… Or does this have the Wilpon’s fingerprints all over it? Either way this was a small market mentality that shouldn’t be tolerated when you play in New York, baseball’s grandest stage.

Regarding the rotation, Adam believes that Jon Niese is still the front-runner to be the team’s fifth starter and writes,

The smart money still has Jon Niese claiming the final slot in the rotation over Fernando Nieve, with Hisanori Takahashi only on the fringe of that race, despite the Japanese lefthander slated for a pair of Grapefruit League starts, on March 27 and April 1.

I have a feeling that the winner of the competition for the fifth starter spot may still be undecided when spring training ends. I’d bet that we may see two to three of them each getting starts in April, with Jerry Manuel playing the hotter hand for the rest of the season. The fifth starter spot has been constantly in a state of flux for the past few seasons now, with over a dozen different pitchers trying but not succeeding in keeping a job in the rotation.

In the bullpen Adam writes that Bobby Parnell and Sean Green are in some jeopardy of not making the Opening Day roster, although Green would seem to be less vulnerable because his salary is $975,000 even if he’s in the minors.

I actually mentioned that both Parnell AND Green were dangerously close to losing their bullpen spots last week, especially when you consider the outstanding spring performances of Nelson Figueroa, Pat Misch, Ryota Igarashi, Hisanori Takahashi and Jenrry Mejia.

Rubin points to Francisco Rodriguez and Pedro Feliciano as the obvious locks, with right-handers Ryota Igarashi and Kiko Calero virtually assured of spots as well. Fernando Nieve is also close to locking up a bullpen spot leaving just two more spots that are yet to be decided.

He believes that Jenrry Mejia will most likely unseat Parnell with Green’s spot possibly going to free-agent lefthander Joe Beimel, whom he says the Mets remain in touch with. But if that doesn’t transpire, Hisanori Takahashi or Nelson Figueroa could make the team.

It’s starting to look more and more like Mejia could make the team, even though I’m still against such a move. Ironically, he could replace Bobby Parnell who was exactly in the same position Mejia now finds himself in. We had these same debates regarding Parnell last spring, and I wondered if promoting him to the bullpen would jeopardize his ability to be a future starter for the Mets. Now Parnell could find himself going back to the minors, and whether he returns as a reliever or starter is still to be determined. Now everyone is just as fascinated with Mejia’s fastball as they were with Parnell’s… Hopefully Mejia won’t suffer a similar fate…

I have a strong hunch that the Mets could possibly trade Sean Green to make room in the bullpen and create an opportunity for Misch or Takahashi.

K-Rod had a nice season, but his dip from 62 saves in Los Angeles the year before to 35 with the Mets was both a reflection on the Mets having a bad season and him being a bit inconsistent.  His 3.71 ERA was also way inflated from his 2.24 mark the previous season.  Putz was pitching pretty well before blowing out an elbow and being put on the DL about a third of the way into the 2009 season.  And Parnell was great at times, and a gas can at others.

So now, how do you feel knowing that K-Rod is coming off a sub-par season, with Parnell, Kelvim Escobar, Jose Feliciano, Sean Green, Pat Misch and Ryota Igarashi behind him?  On paper, this bullpen is almost as much of a question mark as the starting rotation is.  That’s not to say they can’t overachieve and keep the team in games, but how likely is that?  And the rotation is not exactly the kind of group that will give the bullpen long stretches of rest at a time.  To the contrary, they will be called upon to pitch 2-3 innings each night.

So I ask you, how do you all feel about this bullpen?

Sean Green may be the weakest link in the bullpen this season as I’m sure Jerry and Omar are going to have him in the opening day roster. Big mistake.

The 30-year-old former Mariner had a less than inaugural first season with the Mets.

As you can see, his runs and earned runs are well above any of the other Mets relievers, while his strike-out to walk ratio is 1.5/1. Only Ollie Perez was worse among all Mets pitchers.

When Manuel goes to Green it’s almost a surety that runs will score if they are in scoring position, costing us the lead, or on too many occasions, the win. It had almost become a matter of routine. So much so that when he entered a game I feared watching how it ultimately would unfold.

On Thursday, Sean Green’s two-thirds of an inning performance in the Mets 17-11 win against the Cardinals, gave me little hope as he gave up four runs on two hits and four walks. This after his much ballyhooed new delivery which was intended to give him better control and a consistent release point. The new delivery did none of that. Sure it was one spring game, but it mirrored what he already did for an entire season in 2009.

The best thing the Mets could do is cut their weakest link by either trading him or sending him down to AAA-Buffalo where he can work on a delivery that will actually lead to better results.

I would love to see the Mets increase their offer to free agent Joe Beimel who would be a significant upgrade and more useful as second lefthander with a proven track record of success. If the goal is to build the best bullpen we can for the 2010 season, let’s begin by replacing Green with Beimel.

One of those players was reliever, Brian Stokes.

Last season, Stokes, 30, appeared in a career-high 69 games and pitched 70.1 innings, which were also the most in his four year career.

All the while, the hard throwing right-hander was able to maintain a 3.97 ERA, which isn’t all that spectacular but certainly is acceptable.

The main concern with Stokes was that he was inconsistent, at times. During the start of the season, the young pitcher was lights out, as he did not allow an earned run throughout his first twelve innings pitched.

He continued his successful run well into the middle of May where he accumulated an ERA of 0.52. Unfortunately, he took a couple steps back on May 24th against the Red Sox, in which he allowed 5 earned runs in only 1.1 innings.

From there aside from similar meltdowns against both the New York Yankees in June and the Chicago Cubs in August, he pitched relatively well until the month of September.

September was by far Stokes’s worse month on the mound, as he was roughed up by the Rockies, Cubs and Nationals. In total for the month Stokes allowed 10 earned runs in 11 innings pitched, which equates to a nasty ERA of 8.18 for the month.

It seems as if September is not the month for Brian Stokes. Even in 2008, his ERA was nearly two runs higher in September than it was in August.

One reason behind this is that the pitcher maybe tiring out. Nonetheless when looking to build a contender you need a players that can step up their game for a playoff push.

I had read recently that Brian Stokes could be under consideration to be the team’s setup man next season. Despite the fact that I am a fan of the pitcher, I do not think this role is appropriate for him.

Setup men generally are power pitchers who throw hard and strike out batters frequently. While Stokes may be a power pitcher his strike out numbers could use improvement.

Last year, he had a 45:38 K/BB ratio, which is OK for an average reliever, but you would want more out of a setup man.

To me, Stokes is an average-to-slightly above average middle reliever. Keep in mind though, unlike other positions a 30 year-old relief pitcher is still considered very young so there is a lot of time for improvement.

This season, Stokes made somewhere just north of $400K, which is hardly anything in terms of baseball money. He should be looking at a similar salary next season before he heads for his arbitration year following the 2010 season.

Final Verdict: The fact that Stokes is still young and has had success under the tutelage of pitching coach, Dan Warthen, coupled with the fact that he earns a relatively low salary makes Stokes an ideal choice to round out one of the final spots in next year’s bullpen.

As in the case of Sean Green, if Stokes struggles, the team can afford to let him go and replace him with someone else without having to suffer a significant financial burden.

At the conclusion of each article, I would make a determination on whether or not I thought the pitcher should be brought back.

The articles, for the most part, were met with solid reader reception so this year we will continue the tradition.

To kickoff the off-season we will analyze the most criticized member of the 2009 bullpen, Sean Green.

Green, who was acquired in the J.J. Putz trade, was supposed to provide the team with solid middle relief and replace the void left by Joe Smith.

Needless to say, Green wasn’t as spectacular as ownership was presumably hoping he would be.

After getting off to a rough start in April, in which the righty posted an ugly ERA of 8.49, Green seemed to begin to find his groove in June and July posting two straight months of an ERA in the mid-to-low threes.

However, the pitcher regressed in August and his ERA for the month was nearly double its predecessor (5.91). There came a point that many fans, including myself, began to turn green at the very sight of the pitcher (pun intended).

It seemed as if Green was becoming Aaron Heilman 2.0.

After hearing a chorus of boos over and over again, Green recognized a change needed to be made and he tweaked his delivery to more of a side-arm style in an attempt to throw off opposing batters’ timing.

The change proved to be effective, as he had a 2.79 ERA for the month of September, along with two shut-out relief appearances in October.

To be fair the sample size with the new delivery is a rather small one and it isn’t wise to judge a player based on their September performance.

Having appeared in 79 games for the Mets last season, Sean Green’s final line consisted of a 4.52 ERA and a (1-4) record.

While these numbers are certainly far from ideal, keep in mind that they do not stray far away from Green’s past seasons with Seattle. Also, it is important to note that Green only took home a salary of $471,000, which isn’t much more than league minimum.

Final Verdict: Although, I am not a fan of Sean Green, personally, I do believe the Mets should bring back the reliever because he is a low risk option that offers the potential of solid middle relief at a rather affordable rate.

Currently, the Mets have two ex-All-Star setup men on their roster in Billy Wagner and J.J. Putz. Although, both have options for next season it is highly unlikely either will be brought back without at least signing a new deal that will pay them less money. Even so, I still don’t see this happening.

In Wagner’s case, he wants the role of closer, which he has held with numerous teams for the better part of the past decade. This is something that the Mets simply cannot offer him due to that position being occupied by the younger Francisco Rodriguez.

As in Wagner’s situation, J.J. Putz would also prefer to close, however agreed to setup K-Rod upon being traded to New York from Seattle. Putz is also six years younger than Wagner and in theory has a few more productive years ahead of him.

However, despite this there is no way even the Mets could justify handing out nearly nine million dollars to a pitcher, who posted an ugly 5.22 ERA. I understand Putz was hurt, but at the same time when it looks as if management may only be able to allot $20 million dollars for salary next year that amount of money becomes a significant issue.

Taking Wagner and Putz out of the equation, the Mets will have a bullpen consisting of Brian Stokes, Pedro Feliciano, Sean Green and Francisco Rodriguez. I neglected to include Bobby Parnell, who could either start or relieve next year.

This all is obviously subject to change as it is still to early to tell whether or not this tandem will be back in a Mets uniform.

It wouldn’t be unimaginable for the Mets not to tender a contract to Green, who has been less than stellar this season with a 5.13 ERA and three blown saves.

Assuming the Mets do not retain him for next year that would leave them with three quality arms for the bullpen. Clearly, that is not enough to warrant a solid bullpen. Whether it be via a trade or a free agent signing, the Mets are going to have to get a reliever that can get lefties out.

For the past two years, the Mets have supposedly been searching for a lefty specialist to take some of the workload off Pedro Feliciano. However, after some 152 relief appearances over the past two seasons Feliciano has still yet to receive reliable assistance in the bullpen.

Looking exclusively at the upcoming free agent class there aren’t that many intriguing names out there. Sure there’s Joe Beimel, but if Omar didn’t pick him up last off-season when he had the chance to last year I don’t see it happening this season when he will have even less funds to spend.

As for filling the other impending voids in the pen the Mets had a young reliever who had the ability to get both righties and lefties out in Darren O’Day, but they put him on waivers to enable Nelson Figueroa to make a spot start back in April. Another great roster move by Mr. Minaya.

Since joining the Rangers O’Day has been stellar, posting a 1.84 ERA and accumulating 16 holds.

All in all, the Mets will have a lot of voids to fill this coming off-season, however it is important that they do not neglect the one aspect of the team that lead to a very disappointing season in 2008.

With that being said, this post might come off as being a little bit too nit-picky.

I am somewhat befuddled by Jerry Manuel’s incessant overuse of Sean Green so far this season. Green is mired in the midst of a dreadful start that has seen his ERA swell to 9.00. Opposing batters are hitting .339 against him.

For some unknown reason, when Green came over in the Heilman trade, he was given the keys to the kingdom and had already been anointed as the Mets 7th inning man.

 The Mets wouldn’t stop gloating and repeatedly commented on how excited they were to get the Mariners to kick in Green in the deal. Why?

When I looked at Green’s stats I saw a reliever who had a 4.67 ERA last season, and had given up 80 hits and 36 walks in just 79 innings pitched. Hardly anything to get excited about.

He was also being sold as a crossover reliever when in fact, lefthanded hitters had knocked him around for a .300 batting average against.

Jerry Manuel believes that Sean Green can and will be fixed. Why are the Mets always trying to fix pitchers? Going back to Victor Zambrano (sorry for bringing him up) and including a long list of other pet projects, the Mets have one of the worst success rates when it comes to fixing pitchers. In fact, I can’t think of one such pitcher that was fixed.

They were going to fix Aaron Heilman and discovered a flaw in Scott Schoeneweis that was supposed to be the cure-all for their bullpen problems. We all know how that ended up.

Here is what Manuel said about Sean Green after last night’s game.

“Just to me, I think it’s the different arm slots in his delivery right now,” Jerry Manuel said. “Just like anybody, he has to find his proper slot. And I think once he does that, his ball moves enough that he can be a guy who can be very effective for us. It’s just a matter of time before he figures that out.”

Why not let him get fixed in AAA before he starts to do some real damage to our won-loss record. If you really feel he can be fixed and that you can suddenly transform a pitcher with a lifetime ERA of 4.59 into something that he’s never been, knock yourself out. But do it in the minors, not in the bullpen of a team that has aspirations for winning a title in the toughest division in the National League.

We currently have more worthy options we can use in Brian Stokes (0.00 ERA) and Bobby Parnell (1.29 ERA).

Why tempt fate when we all now how fickle it could be?

Sean Green is not a crossover pitcher. Sean Green allows too many baserunners to be used late in games. Sean Green does not have overpowering stuff and can’t even maintain a 2:1 strikeout to walk ratio.

Let’s stop making more out of him than he really is.

The Mets and their habit of fixing pitchers have had disastrous results in the last five years. Why not accept players at face value?

Why maintain such enormous amounts of statistical data on a player and than arbitrarily choose to ignore the overwhelming evidence?

Before this whole fixing Sean Green comes back to bite us on the ass, let’s just nip this thing in the bud and send him off to AAA-Buffalo where you can fix him to your hearts delight, and do it without damaging our chances for a division title.

The Mets (9-11) fell to the Florida Marlins (12-8)  7-4 due mostly in part to a Sean Green implosion and an inability to add runs late. Jorge Cantu tagged the Mets for two homeruns.

Mets Pitching

Livan Hernandez had a decent start and was able to keep the Mets in the game. He allowed just 2 earned runs in 5.1 innings pitched on 3 hits and 2 walks, while striking out 5 Marlins. He handed the bullpen the lead and certainly pitched good enough to win the game. Hernandez lowered his ERA to 6.33 and more importantly he virtually assured himself another go-around in the rotation.

Jerry Manuel pulled Livan after he got one out in the sixth inning and brought in Bobby Parnell to get the last two outs. Parnell has been a nice surprise in the bullpen and continues to gain confidence with each appearance. Sean Green was unable to protect the lead and allowed four runs including the decisive homer by Jorge Cantu, a three run blast in the seventh. For Green it was the second time he got torched in his last 5 appearances. The last time coming when he allowed 5 earned runs against the Cardinals.

Another bright spot in the bullpen has been Brian Stokes who pitched 1.2 scoreless innings in this game and has yet to allow a run this season.

Mets Hitting

The Mets scored early thanks to a Gary Sheffield two-run triple and also added RBI hits by Alex Cora and David Wright.

Cora was on base three times in the game thanks to a couple of hits and a walk, and he also stole a base.

Jose Reyes went 0-5 and has just 3 hits in his last 25 at-bats. Do you want me to calculate the batting average for you? On second thought I better not.

Random Thoughts

Are they trying to make Sean Green something he’s not? The Mets say he’s a crossover pitcher but his career OPS is almost 200 points higher against lefthanded hitters and his BB/K ratio is even more discouraging. His ERA against lefthanded batters stands at 12.00 this season.

Once again the Mets fail to add on runs late in the game. It’s a trend that will come to haunt them unless they can reverse it in time.

After the game, Wright mentioned an absence of “fire and desire.” He said, “I think that’s what Jerry’s talking about.”

he bottom line is that this game wasn’t that terrible a loss. I saw more positives than negatives. Once the Mets can produce more consistently on offense, they will be able to put together a positive stretch and gain some ground in the standings.

Game Ball

I’m splitting the game ball between Livan Hernandez and Alex Cora.

Up Next

The Mets will have Johan Santana on the mound to pitch the matinée rubber game. It also means he doesn’t pitch in the Phillies series this weekend. LGM

The Mets (6-9) flamed out and got swept by the Cardinals (11-5) despite the new look lineup. They did bang out 13 hits, but unfortunately for them the Cardinals hammered our pitching for 12 runs and 18 hits.

Mets Pitching

Livan Hernandez started and he was hit hard right from the start when Albert Pujols tagged him for the first of two homeruns in the first inning. Hernandez pitched 4.1 innings and allowed 7 earned runs on 9 hits and a walk while striking out none.  This was a huge blow for the Mets who were hoping that Livan could pick up the slack after dismal performances by Oliver Perez and John Maine. No such luck.

Brain Stokes relieved Hernandez and got the last two outs in the fifth inning, but all hell broke lose when Sean Green came out to start the sixth inning. In two innings he was roughed up for 5 runs on 7 hits and 2 walks. Yikes!

Bobby Parnell pitched a scoreless inning and ended the carnage.

Mets Hitting

Carlos Beltran is the hottest player in the National League right now. He padded his league leading batting average with three more hits today including a three-run homer and is now hitting .404. If he keep this up he may be the Mets first ever MVP.

 David Wright had a couple of hits batting number five, and he also drove in a run and scored one. Ryan Church also added a couple of hits including his first homer of the season in the seventh inning, a two run blast.

A couple of Mets got their first hits of the season today, Alex Cora who started at second base and Fernando Tatis who pinch hit and took over at third base for Wright.

Player of the Game

Carlos Beltran excelled as the number three hitter going 3-5 including a double and a three-run homer.

Up Next

The Mets head back to Citi Field for a weekend series with the Washington Nationals. Johan Santana should snap our four game losing streak on Friday.

For many games in 2008 it was the bullpen that lost games for the Mets.  Johan Santana knows that better than anyone as the bullpen blew 7 of his starts last year.  I don’t think it’s fair to blame the bullpen for the lost last night.  Last nights lost was the result of a lack of offense when it mattered most.  I know the Mets offense scored 4 runs but they could have and should have scored more than just the 4 runs.  There were plenty of opportunities to blow the game wide open.  Last night the Mets left 14 men on base, 12 of which in scoring position.  That is inexcusable.  To win baseball games you have to drive in runs when there are runners on base, something that the Mets offense could not do.  The Marlins walked 6 Mets throughout the game, when you are given bases you must capitalize on what you’re given otherwise the walks are useless.

Parnell, Green and O’Day did let the runs score but those 3 runs wouldn’t have  hurt the Mets if the offense did their job and scored more runs.  The Mets need to get out of this funk with runners on base and produce runs with men in scoring position.  Otherwise there will be many more endings like last night.