Thoughts on a Hot Monday Afternoon

After a four game series that the Mets scored a total of eight runs and only one won game, here are some links/thoughts.

• Citislickers has their weekly preview of the NL East.
• My Take: The Mets sit 5 games out of 1st place with 12 games before the trading deadline. They are on pace to win 86 games and the Braves are on pace to win 95 games.
• Baseball Prospectus ran their daily Playoff Odds, and on July 4th, the Mets had a 40.3% chance of making the playoffs. As of this AM, this is now 21.1%
• My Take: I think that's about right, a 1 in 5 chance to make the playoffs. I hope Omar realizes this before mortgaging the future that he won't be around for. 
• Joe Janish over at Mets Today has a great article on Pelfrey's mechanics and what to look for in tonight's start.
• My Take: I hope Big Pelf reads this and makes the simple correction. He has had minimal success versus the Diamondbacks in the past (0-4, 5.22 ERA), but the Mets need a big performance from him tonight.
• Joe was very busy and informative today, also comparing/contrasting the receiving styles of Buster Posey and Henry Blanco from the catcher's point of view of "framing."
• My Take: Must read for any big baseball fan/coach. I was a pitcher and could definitely remember one catcher who knew how to properly frame a pitch, but most were more like Blanco. Yet another reason why I don't see a role for Blanco to remain on this team when Thole is clearly a better hitting catcher, and Blanco's role is "a good defensive catcher."
• Will Carrol at Baseball Prospectus talked about Carlos Beltran in his "Under the Knife" column and he wrote this:

• "I spoke with a scout who saw him this weekend who agreed, saying he's a 45-50 runner right now on the standard 20-80 scouting scale."

•  My Take: This is confirmed by what many of us have seen from Beltran since his return on Thursday, as multiple readers have complained about his poor jumps or routes on fly balls. If he is just an average center fielder, not a threat on the bases, and not able to hit 20+ home runs (let alone 30), how valuable is he?

Overall, Mets need to win 2 of 3 versus the Diamondbacks and I think the Mets need to win the next two games as they are facing the Diamondbacks ace Dan Haren on Wednesday. All three of these games start at 9:40. I can't wait for them to resume "normal game times."