Opinion

Former Mets first baseman and current television analyst, Keith Hernandez has said a few times during the course of the season that a team is never as good as they look during a hot streak, and is never as bad as they seem to be during a cold streak.

Well, the Mets have seen both sides of the coin early in this young season, which leads me to believe that they'll end up, eventually, some place in the middle.

Right now, that middle seems to be the .500 mark, where the Mets are now hovering close to at 18-20, following a dismal four-game sweep at the hands of the Marlins down in Miami.

Alas, the days when teams had one relief pitcher who pitched multiple innings are gone. Specializing relief pitchers is part of the game now, as we rarely see a reliever go more than one inning unless special circumstances apply (rain delay, blowout, etc.). 

The whole point of specializing relief pitchers is to make them more efficient.

A lefty specialist can focus only on left-handed batters, and he usually comes in when another left-hander is up.

When asked what his team needed to do to turn it around after a fifth-straight loss to the Pirates, Chicago Cubs skipper Lou Piniella had this to say:

"If we start doing the things that we're capable of doing, I won't have to answer these questions all the time."

But the question remains, can this team turn it around in time to make any noise in the post-season picture?

The quest to find this answer began today with a 4-3 comeback win over the Bucs.

It is not that often that the New Hampshire Fisher Cats, the Double-A affiliate of the Toronto Blue Jays and the Indy Atlantic League are mentioned in the same sentence.

However, within a two-week span, fans have been entertained to record-breaking numbers!

The Fisher Cats hit a milestone by welcoming in their two millionth fan.

Last year, the Pittsburgh Pirates traded away Tom Gorzelanny, then later signed Brian Burres as compensation. Friday night's game was the first test of the direct impact of the two moves. So how did the Pirates do?

Not so well. Burres pitched four innings, one less than Gorzelanny. And he gave up six runs, one more than Tom Gorzelanny. Clearly, the Pirates had given up something with this sequence of events.

As a lifelong skeptic, I am the first person to downplay a small sample size of excellent statistics.

When Mike Sweeney tore through spring training and earned a roster spot with the Mariners this year, part of me said 'good, I'll take an able bat on the bench,' while another part of me said 'why are we wasting a roster spot on a non-fielding designated hitter and pinch hitter when we already have Griffey filling that role?' I was skeptical, but willing to give Sweeney a few weeks to prove me wrong.

"Civil rights include the ensuring of peoples' physical integrity and safety; protection from discrimination on grounds such as physical or mental disability, gender, religion, race, sexual orientation, national origin, age, and individual rights such as the freedoms of thought and conscience, speech and expression, religion, the press, and movement."

That's a definition of civil rights from Wikipedia.

On Saturday night Cincinnati hosted it's second consecutive "Civil Rights Game."

Look, Carlos Zambrano makes a hell of a lot of money. If he is going to provide any return on that investment, it has to be as a starting pitcher, not a reliever.

You don't pay relievers $18 million per season. Plus, he isn't doing a good job in that role anyway.

If the Cubs had listened to my advice two years ago and again last year, they would have traded Big Z when they had the chance.

When I wrote the articles, many Cubs fans said no way you trade Zambrano. And even the ones who thought it made sense wanted a king's ransom in return.

The Mets got off to a very poor start this season. They were 2-6 and it looked like they were on their way to 100 losses.

Then all of a sudden they caught fire en route to a 9-1 home stand, eight straight wins and a 14-9 record. For a couple of days, they were actually in first place in the NL East.

Ever since that winning streak, they have gone 4-10 to drop to 18-19 and five games out of first place.

IP: 201 2/3  H: 180   ER: 81   HR: 12  BB: 88   K: 210  ERA: 3.61   WHIP: 1.33   BAA: .239

SV/OPP: 93/109  SV %: 85.3

Prior to Saturday's Giants/Astros matchup, those were Giants closer Brian Wilson's career numbers.

And while some say the 2008 All Star is an underrated closer, the reality is that the 28-year-old reliever receives more credit than he deserves.