The well of ways to say the Mets suck is starting to run dry. Tonight, Jon Niese showed why he may need a little more time in the minors and the Cubs showed why they're the team to beat in the National League.

Jason Marquis drove in more runs -- 5 -- than the entire Mets' team. The Mets' first run was scored by Carlos Delgado on a Marquis wild pitch, so their offense technically only gets credit for four runs batted in on the night. Marquis knocked in four on the fourth-inning grand slam and another on a groundout an inning later.

Duaner Sanchez and Aaron Heilman pitched a scoreless inning apiece to get the ball to the Mets' closer. Just like they drew it up in March. Except that in this reality, the Mets were already out of it when Sanchez and Heilman entered the game and they handed the ball to Luis Ayala and not a real closer. This is also ignoring the fact that for the better part of this season, Sanchez and Heilman have thrown very few scoreless innings, especially in games the Mets weren't already en route to losing.

The Cubs are going with Sean Marshall tomorrow, as the Mets counter with Johan Santana. Suffice it to say, this is kinda sorta an important game.

Big winners: Ryan Church, +9.9% WPA, Daniel Murphy, +7.3% WPA
Big losers: Jon Niese, -44.4% WPA, Luis Castillo, -6.3% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Murphy RBI double in 2nd, +10.9% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: Marquis grand slam, -18.4% WPA
Total pitcher WPA: -48.2%
Total batter WPA: -1.8%
GWRBI: Jason Marquis

Game Thread Roll Call

Nice job by LOUtheMETSfan; his effort in the game thread embiggens us all.

Four days ago the Mets held a 3.5 game lead in the NL East over the Phillies. With tonight's heinous loss in Washington, that lead has been whittled to a can't-be-any-smaller-while-still-maintaining-the-properties-of-a-lead advantage of just a half-game. They also have a theoretical half-game lead for the Wild Card, which means there may be a consolation prize awaiting them if they blow this thing again.

The Mets don't deserve all of the blame for this loss. John Lannan was very good tonight; the Mets didn't get many good swings against him. Pedro Martinez was not good, again. He wasn't awful, but the Nationals are among the worst teams in baseball in almost every offensive category, so if you can't hold them in check you're going to have a tough go of it against the better teams in the league.

And the bullpen is back to full-on meltdown mode. Duaner Sanchez shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a pitcher's mound unless he has a rake and a bag of dirt. What will tomorrow bring? Only Kreskin knows for sure. Bad things are afoot at the Circle Shea.

Big winners: Luis Castillo, +4.7% WPA, Ryan Church, +1.6% WPA
Big losers: Pedro Martinez, -12.9% WPA, David Wright, -12.2% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Schneider leadoff double in third, +6.8% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: IPOR two-run single, -15.4% WPA
Total pitcher WPA: -17.9%
Total batter WPA: -32.1%
GWRBI: Anderson Hernandez

Game Thread Roll Call

Nice job by Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright; his effort in the game thread embiggens us all.

An easy win for Oliver Perez, who wasn't great but didn't have to be because the Mets' offense did all of the heavy lifting for him. Somewhat amazingly, Perez stuck around for 6.2 innings and didn't record a single groundball out. He struck out five and induced flyballs on the other fifteen batters he retired. That's craziness.

Perez did walk five batters, which had to be a little disappointing considering that he already had a six-run cushion when he took the mound in the first and the Brewers never got closer than 6-2. You've got a huge lead, just throw strikes, man!

The Mets got another 2.1 scoreless innings of relief out of a bullpen that is suddenly showing signs of aptitude. Even Duaner "Gasoline Fire" Sanchez kept the Brewers off the board in his second consecutive scoreless appearance. He had allowed runs in four of his prior six appearances, none of which lasted even an inning.

Pitching aside, the story of this game was the offense. Every starter reached base either via hit or walk, and everyone except Jose Reyes scored at least one run. Dan Murphy and Carlos Beltran three time apiece, and Reyes (47), Beltran (20) and Luis Castillo (15) each added a stolen base.

I gave the GWRBI to Ryan Church because, using the new, awesome-r rules, he drove in the actual winning run with his grand slam in the first. If we were using the traditional rules, the GWRBI would have gone to Carlos Delgado since he put the Mets ahead for good with his single in the first. So, if you're scoring the old-fashioned way you can give it to Delgado.

The Philthies lost again to the Nationals, so the Mets' lead in the NL East grew to three games. Both teams are off tomorrow before beginning a three-game series at Shea on Friday that culminates in Santana v Hamels on ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball.

Big winners: Ryan Church, +16.2% WPA, Oliver Perez, +10.1% WPA
Big losers: Fernando Tatis, -.7% WPA, Luis Castillo, -.5% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Church salami, +18.7% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: Hardy RBI single in 1st, -3.4% WPA
Total pitcher WPA: +12.6%
Total batter WPA: +37.4%
GWRBI: Ryan Church

Game Thread Roll Call

Nice job by IanB in MD; his effort in the game thread embiggens us all.

!@#$ Duaner Sanchez.
!@#$ Aaron Heilman.
!@#$ Jerry Manuel.
Did I miss anyone?

Big winners: Mike Pelfrey, +17.7% WPA, David Wright, +11.6 WPA
Big losers: Aaron Heilman, -35.7% WPA, Duaner Sanchez, -20.1% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Wright homerun, +16.4% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: Duaner !@#$ Sanchez, -29.6% WPA
Total pitcher WPA: -31.3%
Total batter WPA: -18.7%
GWRBI: Josh Willingham

Game Thread Roll Call

Nice job by BobbyV_Incognito; his effort in the game thread embiggens us all.

Just a brutal game all-around. John Maine had arguably the worst start of any Met this season, allowing eight runs on ten hits in 5.2 innings for a woeful game score of 19. Duaner Sanchez "relieved" him in the sixth and allowed singles to the first two runners he faced before retiring the final out of the inning. Maine and Sanchez are probably the Mets' two biggest problems right now, and nothing we saw on Saturday would lead us to believe that things have gotten better. I guess Maine's velocity was up, so that's a little encouraging.

Brian Schneider needs a random PED test pronto.

Big winners: Ryan Church, +2.7% WPA, Brian Stokes, +0.3% WPA
Big losers: John Maine, -29.1% WPA, Carlos Delgado, -4.9% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Church RBI double, +4.6% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: Berkman homerun, -13.5% WPA
Total pitcher WPA: -31.8%
Total batter WPA: -18.2%
GWRBI: Lance Berkman

Game Thread Roll Call

Nice job by Simons; his effort in the game thread embiggens us all.

You can't win them all, and four-game sweeps are especially tough, but when you take the first three against an awful team like the Pirates, it's a little disappointing not to come away with the last one. The Mets failed in the two areas they fail most often: hitting with runners in scoring position and relief pitching. The Mets had thirteen baserunners and only plated two of them. Comparatively, the Pirates had 15 baserunners and plated five.

Pitching-wise, John Maine was iffy. The two hits allowed look great, but his velocity was piss-poor and he walked four batters to just three strikeouts in five innings. He gets some bonus points for figuring out a way to get through those five innings with slop, but the Pirates are a crappy, crappy offensive team so it's hard to come away particularly impressed with his outing.

Brian Stokes turned back into a pumpkin, giving up a brutal two-run homer to Adam LaRoche that tied the game in the sixth. Pedro Feliciano and especially Duaner Sanchez were bad, combining to cough up three runs in the bottom of the eighth.

Damion Easley was just brutal at the plate, going 0-for-3 with a walk and accounting for five total outs if you consider his two GIDPs. The walk came in the ninth when the Mets actually managed to bring the tying run to the plate. Unfortunately, Argenis Reyes was that tying run, and he quickly became the third out.

No rest for the weary, as the Mets scoot home to take on the Braves on Tuesday.

Big winners: John Maine, +29.9% WPA, Nick Evans, +13.6% WPA
Big losers: Duaner Sanchez, -37.3% WPA, Brian Stokes, -23.7% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Sanchez double-play in 5th, +21.1% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: LaRoche homerun, -25.4% WPA
Total pitcher WPA: -21.1%
Total batter WPA: -29.9%

Game Thread Roll Call

Nice job by IanB in MD; his effort in the game thread embiggens us all.

The story of the game, as it has been all series, was the Mets' knack for getting runners in after they reached base. The Mets had fourteen men on base and scored nine times (two of those were homeruns), which is an incredible ratio. Anytime you score nine runs on just eight hits, either you did a terrific job hitting with runners on base or you drew a boatload of walks or both. The Mets walked five times and hit impeccably in the clutch.

Oliver Perez had another strong start (game score of 55), though he ran out of steam and got touched up a bit in the seventh. The Mets' bullpen was strong again, though pitching well for a few games against the Nationals doesn't exactly turn a season around.

Big winners: Duaner Sanchez, +18.2% WPA, Oliver Perez, +14.8% WPA
Big losers: Jose Reyes, -5.5% WPA, Joe Smith, -4.8% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Wright leadoff double in 4th, +12.1% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: Orr two-run triple in 7th, -7.2% WPA
Total pitcher WPA: +28.4%
Total batter WPA: +21.6%

Game Thread Roll Call

Nice job by BobbyV_Incognito; his effort in the game thread embiggens us all.

Fact: the Mets bullpen has fallen apart over the past week or so, hemorrhaging runs like a wound that just won't clot, regardless of how much dirt you rub in it or makeshift bandages you fashion out of paper bags and slug guts. A lot of theories have been floated that purport to explain the recent underwhelming play of the relief corps, from fatigue to poor supporting defense just regular crappiness. I just wanted to take a quick look at the state of the bullpen to see if they've really been overworked, or whether it's something else.

Dan Scotto made his case for improving the infield defense, particularly the right side, where Carlos Delgado has lead boots and Damion Easley doesn't quite move around like he used to. Anecdotally speaking, David Wright and Jose Reyes haven't been spectacular this year, but they've been at least decent and, well, they're not going anywhere. There's a little room for negotation at first and second, especially in the late innings, where maybe a run or two could be saved here and there. As Dan points out, the Mets' bullpen is chock full of groundball pitchers, which are an asset when your fielders are adept and less so when they're sluggardly oafs.

The idea that the Mets' starting rotation hasn't gone deep into games as an explanation for the bullpen's malaise has been bandied about quite a bit, but I don't know how much validity there is to it, really. We've all heard how Bob Gibson used to throw 93 complete games every year and how Cy Young would pitch nine days a week, but running the numbers shows that the Mets' bullpen hasn't been especially overworked relative to the rest of the league. Here are the average innings pitched per game start (IP/GS) for NL teams:

The Mets rank fifth in the National League in starting pitcher longevity, their rotation tossing more innings on average than all but four NL teams. That shouldn't be too surprising if you actually sit down and think about the construction of the Mets' starting staff. Sure, Pedro Martinez has been a crapshoot as has the fifth starter spot in general, but aside from that you've got four young-ish guys in John Maine, Oliver Perez, Johan Santana and Mike Pelfrey. Not too many years or innings on any of those arms, so it shouldn't be so much to ask them to buck up for six innings at a shot.

So the starters have been pulling their weight, what else? At first I thought that maybe the Mets had played a ton of long extra-inning games, so even if the rotation was going deep the bullpen could still be screwed if the Mets were constantly playing more than nine innings. Well, turns out that's not really the case, either:

The Mets are right about where they should be in terms of innings thrown by their relievers en masse. Their starters are fifth in most innings thrown and their bullpen is sixth in fewest innings per game. So, overall the Mets' relievers haven't been especially taxed.

What about individually? Well, Aaron Heilman has been abused. He has thrown 60 innings to this point, which actually only ranks him sixth in the NL. Still, that's an awful lot of innings through 111 games, so Heilman has probably been overworked a bit.

As for the rest of the bullpen, the next most-used Mets relievers are Billy Wagner and Duaner Sanchez at 47 innings apiece, tied for 40th in the NL. It may seem like a lot of innings for Wagner to throw as a closer, but fellow closers Salomon Torres, Kevin Gregg, Jose Valverde, Francisco Cordero and Brad Lidge have all thrown more. Sanchez, on the other hand, is a concern.

After having not thrown a pitch in a big league game since July 28, 2006, Sanchez has been one of the most oft-used relievers on the Mets this year. I'm not sure who's to blame for that, but I'm sure if you asked the Mets collectively at the beginning of the season whether they expected Sanchez to be so active by the first week of August I don't think many would have been on board with that plan. Even well-seasoned relievers wear down in the dog days of summer, so for someone who was basically out of baseball for 18 months it's probably too much to expect Sanchez to hold up under such circumstances.

Joe Smith could also be wearing down a bit, though he's young and has a couple of years of professional ball under his belt at this point. Pedro Feliciano, too, has shown signs of wear, and though he has appeared in just one fewer game than Heilman (58 to 57) he has thrown more than 20 fewer innings because he has been used far more selectively (i.e. often just against lefties and with runners on base). Feliciano has also been dreadful against righties this season, getting knocked around to the tune of .333/.416/.538 (!) in 90 plate appearances. That's like every righty who hits against him is Manny Ramirez. Feliciano has historically been at least decent against righties, but right now it's just an invitation to an ass-whooping to leave him out there against anything but lefties. The blame goes to the manager for not recognizing his utter ineffectiveness against the platoon advantage.

Aside from the relief appearances themselves, another thing to look at is the relative stress of those appearances. All appearances aren't created equal; I don't doubt that high pressure situations are more draining -- both physically and mentally -- than lower pressure spots. One easy way to compare relative duress is by using pLI, an indicator of mean leverage via the leverage index, an invention of Tom Tango. Thanks to the awesomeness of FanGraphs.com, we can easily compare the average pLI of all NL relievers. For the purpose of this exercise I've only included those pitchers who have compiled at least 40 innings pitched in relief.

The king of pLI has been the Giants' Brian Wilson, who has pitched in an average leverage situation of 2.35. Anything higher than 1.00 is considered high-leverage, though that scale is skewed somewhat for relievers since they tend to pitch in many more high-leverage situations than starters (late-game at-bats are typically more meaningful than early-game ones because of the reduced likelihood of coming back with so few innings remaining). Of the 62 pitchers who qualified for the above criteria, five are Mets. We can reasonably expect every team to have around four pitchers on the list (62 divided by 16 teams), so the Mets have one extra guy on there. Wagner is the highest at 14th overall (1.71 pLI). The next Met is Sanchez at 29th (1.34 pLI), then Heilman at 33rd (1.22 pLI), Joe Smith at 44th (1.05 pLI) and Scott Schoeneweis at 51st (0.88 pLI). I guess the good news is that the Mets' best reliever (Wagner) has been pitching in the most important situations. The bad news, at least in terms of figuring out what the problem is, is that the Mets' relievers don't seem especially taxed relative to the rest of the league. No clues here.

I guess fatigue seems like the most likely culprit at this point, though for different reasons for different pitchers. Wagner has actually been mostly terrific this season, though his last couple weeks have been particularly bad and that may be more due to injury than anything else. So, to summarize a bit:

Wagner: good, now hurt
Heilman: overused
Sanchez: too much, too soon
Smith: overexposed, maybe
Feliciano: something, ineffective against righties?

Wagner may be headed for the disabled list one way or another, and if the Mets can find an excuse to put Sanchez there to give him a breather it'd probably be for the best. Heilman could benefit from not pitching every day, and the Mets could consider calling up one (or both) of Jon Niese or Robert Parnell to get some work out of the bullpen if/when the aforementioned duo goes on the DL. Eddie Kunz will be a help, though he's not going to be used more than a couple of times a week, I wouldn't think.

So that's what I've got. Any other theories out there?

Mike Pelfrey didn't have it tonight, getting battered around for five runs on eight hits including five for extra bases (three doubles, two triples). Really, he had one terrible inning.

Carlos Muniz and Duaner Sanchez relieved Pelfrey and tossed three scoreless innings (!), allowing Damion Easley to bring the Mets to within a run. Joe Smith made sure that didn't last long, as he coughed up a two-run Ugg-bomb that effectively put the game out of reach in the eighth.

Tonight's sign that the apocalypse is upon us: Marlon Anderson, 3-for-4. Anyone else feel dirty?

Big winners: Damion Easley, +17.8% WPA, Marlon Anderson, +5.9% WPA
Big losers: Mike Pelfrey, -29.5% WPA, David Wright, -15.0% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: Easley three-run bomb, +17.8% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: Ross two-run triple, -22.4% WPA
Total pitcher WPA: -32.4%
Total batter WPA: -17.6%

Game Thread Roll Call

Nice job by BobbyV_Incognito; his effort in the game thread embiggens us all.

The trade deadline is fast approaching and the list of available players is growing shorter. At the same time, the Mets continue to pitch and hit effectively and areas of greatest need are not as considerable as they were as little as a month ago. Then again, winning cures all ills and great play can often mask shortcomings.

Area of need: corner outfield

For instance, Fernando Tatis is hitting .318/.370/.520. Fernando. Tatis. Career .263/.345/.443 hitter. Much worse than that since 2000. He's hitting lefties and righties equally well, and he hasn't completely embarrassed himself in the field. We're only talking 160-some-odd plate appearances, though, and small sample size red flags abound. He's been a great story and a huge lift for the Mets with Moises Alou out for the season and Ryan Church still out as he recovers from the effects of his second concussion this season. Church may be back soon, but neither that nor his long-term status are guaranteed.

Even if Tatis were somehow able to sustain anything resembling his current level of production, Endy Chavez continues to be an offensive sinkhole in right field. Sure, the defense is great and the .272 batting average is decent, but the .316 on-base percentage is 13th among 17 National League right-fielders with at least 250 plate appearances. His .329 slugging percentage is 16th of 17, besting only Washington's Austin Kearns. Endy's .644 OPS is likewise 16th of 17. I don't know which is more astonishing: that Endy is so bad at hitting or that he's managed to accrue 250 plate appearances while being so bad at hitting. That's a poll for another day, I guess. Regardless, Endy's defense is probably good enough to justify carrying his anemic bat as a fourth or fifth outfielder, but as a starting corner outfielder he is pitifully feckless.

Area of need: relief pitching

Billy Wagner's propensity for eating it hard in big games notwithstanding, he's the Mets' best relief pitcher and still one of the best closers in the National League. Aaron Heilman has been a lot better of late and is probably the Mets' number two, which is far preferable to just plain number two, which was Heilman's nom de fan for the first two months of the season.

Duaner Sanchez is a mystery right now. He was effective if unspectacular for the season's first three months, but has been mostly horrible for a couple of weeks now and is suffering a loss in velocity and deterioration of confidence. After missing a year and a half there's no telling what shape his shoulder is in or whether his arm can hold up for an entire season. Maybe it's just a matter of fatigue and he needs a little time off. At all events, he's a definite question mark moving forward.

Pedro Feliciano is still murder on lefties, but unlike the past two seasons, this year he has been downright awful against righties, who have rocked him to the tune of .342/.419/.553. There's nothing wrong with having a lefty specialist in the bullpen, but the Mets already have one guy -- Scott Schoeneweis -- who can't get righties out, and despite his dramatic platoon splits this season I'm pretty sure Jerry Manuel still thinks that Feliciano is a quality guy to throw out there against all comers. Then again, two full years of competence is more meaningful than one half-year of ineptitude, but you still have to assign greater weight to the recent performance, and that's not good news for Feliciano or the Mets.

Joe Smith is the opposite of Feliciano: he dominates righties and has a tough time with the southpaws. Righties have hit just .190/.271/.302 while lefties have gone .293/.408/.415. If only he and Feliciano could play the field I might be inclined to pull Tatis in the late innings and alternate lefty-righty with Smith and Feliciano for an inning or two. It all comes down to how Manuel decides to use them, so let's hope that his inquisitive mind and nerd glasses mean he knows a thing or two about platoon splits.

Area of need: first base?

A month ago this would have been an obvious need, but with Carlos Delgado swinging a mighty big stick I'm not so sure any more. Given how precipitously he declined last year and how quickly he has resurged, you really have to wonder if those nagging injuries were bothering him more than he let on. The elbow in particular caused him a lot of trouble the last year and a half, and if he is finally out from under those problems then maybe it shouldn't be so surprising that he's back to mashing the ball. He's not going to OPS 1.200 the rest of the way as he has during July, but he has finally pushed his OPS over the league average for a first baseman and there's reason for optimism that he might keep it there.

Mark Teixeira and Adam Dunn will cost an arm and a leg to acquire for the remainder of this season and both will be free agents at season's end. They'll both be on the Mets's radar come November, but I think they'll stand pat this summer and hope that Delgado's resurrection is for real.

Area of need: bench

Marlon Anderson is terrible, and needs to be jettisoned as quickly as possible. I like to think that if the Mets could find anyone else worth plugging into that prestigious 25th spot on the roster that they would have already done so, but right now the dried up husks of Lenny Harris and Matt Franco both look like better options. The rest of the bench is serviceable, with Damion Easley and Argenis Reyes both providing decent production. Nick Evans and Robinson Cancel are nothing special, but the Mets seem inclined to give Evans a few looks at the big league level, and as far as Cancel is concerned, well, they would otherwise just be throwing away the rest of the post-game buffet.

Area of need: catcher?

This one's a trick, because the Mets don't actually need to acquire a new catcher; they just need to play their best catcher more often. That means more time on the pine for Brian Schneider and more cracks at the starting lineup for Ramon Castro. Here is my entire argument:

Ramon Castro: .290/.365/.538
Brian Schneider: .247/.337/.300

So, as long as Jerry Manuel continues to read this blog I think the Mets will be fine at catcher. Or, at least, have the RSS feed in his Google Reader. Either or.

In summation and in conclusion: improve the corner outfield and bench if doing so would come at minimal cost to the farm system. A solid reliever would be nice, but given the going rate of solid relievers I would be more inclined to go with what we've got or, possibly, promote from within. Perhaps Eddie Camacho, Eude Brito or Eddie Kunz -- all currently with Binghamton -- could be given a shot. They can't be much worse than Carlos Muniz has been. Stay the course at first base and catcher, giving more playing time to Castro at the latter.