Mets Chances Going Forward [David Stefanini]

Roughly halfway through the baseball season I think it's time to take a realistic look at the chances the New York Mets have at making the playoffs.

This is a team, once again, who on paper was the clear favorite going into the season to win the NL East. Just like the past two seasons when the team takes the field they look nothing like the favorites. They currently sit 4.5 games back of the Phillies in the NL East and 5.5 games back of the San Francisco Giants in the NL Wild Card.

Everyone has blamed the injuries this year for the teams failures, I'm not buying that. Yes it is very difficult when 3 of your 4 best position players get injured. Not to mention 2 of your 5 starters, and your new set-up man. However, when all these players were on the field they weren't exactly notching victories every night looking unstoppable. They have no clue how to play defense and outside of Santana no starter has really been there consistently.

Last night they got one of their injured players back, Oliver Perez. He was wild Ollie again, but he managed to pitch 5 innings and pick up a victory. Can us Met fans count on him the rest of the season, no. So where else can we look for help, Carlos Beltran has not stepped on a field in a while, Carlos Delgado can't even jog, and everyday it looks more like Jose Reyes will not come back this season at all.

I still believe this team has a chance at making the playoffs. Watching most of their games this season they have lost in some of the weirdest ways possible. A dropped pop-up, a few bad calls, forgetting to hit the base pads. I know it's all part of the game but you have to figure in the second half the Law of Averages will begin to work out and those loses will start to turn into wins for the Mets.

These next four games should give us an indication as to how this team will do in the second half. If they come out like a desperate team hustling for every ball and running everything out, maybe putting up a 5 game winning streak, or even taking 3 out of the final 4 games we can all have a glimmer of hope going into the second half. But if the Mets fall to 6 or 7 games back of the Phils for first I don't see anyway possible for this team to make the playoffs.