It sure is nice to have baseball back, isn’t it? Following last season’s disappointment in the NLCS, it feels great to have played a month’s worth of baseball games which count again. And with the first month of baseball down the drain, MetsGeek examines every nook and cranny of the Mets’ performance here at Month in Review. This year we’re back and better than ever with a couple of new categories and statistics for you to peruse.

This April, the Mets got off to a solid 15-9 start against competition that mostly consisted of division rivals—they played just one series apiece against the Cardinals and Rockies. Interestingly, if you remove their record against those two out-of-division teams, you’re left with a less-inspiring record of 10-8. By way of comparison, last season the Mets were 16-8.

Here are our team-by-team splits (now with runs scored and allowed breakdowns!).

Team               W     L    RS    RA
Atlanta            2     4    32    27
Colorado           2     1    13    13
Florida            2     1    26    14
Philadelphia       3     1    26    14
St. Louis          3     0    20     2
Washington         3     2    15    14

You’d really like to see a better record against Atlanta, but you can’t have everything. Home/away splits:

Split         W     L    RS    RA
Home          6     6    58    61
Away          9     3    74    23

Wow, were the Mets better on the road. Next our run differential splits, which show the Mets’ record in games decided by certain numbers of runs:

Split           W     L
1 run           3     2
2-3 runs        2     4
4-5 runs        4     2
6+ runs         6     1

There were a lot of blowouts in the Mets’ favor this month, especially in the first couple weeks.

Comings: Mike Pelfrey, Chan Ho Park, Ruben Gotay
Goings: Lastings Milledge (New Orleans)

“Comings” and “Goings” just aren’t the same without Heath Bell.

Injuries: Dave Williams, Duaner Sanchez, Juan Padilla, Pedro Martinez, Orlando Hernandez, Jose Valentin

Only injuries that really happened in April are the last two. The other guys were injuries from March and before.

Runs Scored:                    132
Runs Allowed:                    84
Team OBA:                      .361
Team SLG:                      .448
Team BA with RISP:             .245
Opponents’ OBA:                .321
Opponents’ SLG:                .363
Opponents’ BA with RISP:       .191
Starters’ ERA:                 3.43
Starters’ K/9:                  6.9
Starters’ BB/9:                 3.7
Starters’ HR/9:                1.08
Relievers’ ERA:                2.09
Relievers’ K/9:                 7.6
Relievers’ BB/9:                4.7
Relievers’ HR/9:               0.34

You’ll notice additional breakdowns of starters’ and relievers’ performances. Two things stand out. First, the Mets’ bullpen has been phenomenal once again. Second, the Mets pitching on the whole has been good but not as great as their runs allowed indicate. Walks in particular have been a slight problem for the pitching staff, but the Mets have gotten some great pitching in the clutch, as their opponents’ average indicates. They’ve also gotten eight double plays in those circumstances, so the defense is playing its part, too.

Longest Winning Streak: 4 (4/1-4/6)

Longest Losing Streak: 2 (twice, 4/7-4/8 and 4/25-4/27)

Pitchers “Beaten”: (Not necessarily the pitcher who took the loss) Chris Carpenter, Kip Wells, Braden Looper, Mark Redman, Cole Hamels, Jamie Moyer, John Patterson, Freddy Garcia, Dontrelle Willis, Rick Vanden Hurk, Chuck James, Taylor Buchholz, Aaron Cook, Jerome Williams, Jason Bergmann

Pitchers “Beaten by”: (Again, not necessarily the pitcher who got the win) John Smoltz (2), Kyle Davies, Adam Eaton, Shawn Hill, Tim Hudson, Josh Fogg, Matt Chico, Scott Olsen

Some good pitchers in both lists, some bad ones in both.

Best Hitter: It’s a tough call. Both Jose Reyes and Carlos Beltran hit .356. Beltran has 67 points of slugging and Reyes has 30 points of OBA and twelve more stolen bases. I refuse to take both, so I’ll take Reyes, who just keeps getting better and better. He’s a joy to watch, and we’re lucky to have him.

Worst Hitter: Carlos Delgado, and I don’t even have to think twice—at least David Wright had a .370 OBA. Delgado was brutal in April, batting .188/.262/.260. Delgado is typically a very strong starter—last year he was April’s hitter of the month—so this is a little surprising. It makes me wonder whether his wrist is bothering him after offseason surgery.

Best Pitcher: Another no-brainer: John Maine. Maine had a perfect month, going 4-0 with a 1.35 ERA, striking out 30 batters in 33 1/3 innings. Best of all, he kept the ball in the park, allowing just two over that span. His walk rate was a little high, but so long as he keeps the ball inside the park and strikes batters out, he’ll be okay.

Worst Pitcher: Mike Pelfrey. Pelfrey had poor outings in all three of his starts, leading me to at least question his position on the team. He’s walking more batters than he’s striking out (7 BB’s, 6 K’s), and he’s not putting the ball on the ground with just 43% of his balls in play being grounders. Hopefully Pelfrey will grow out of this soon, because Jorge Sosa’s performance in AAA is getting hard to ignore, especially once Hernandez gets off the DL.

Best Pitching Performance: John Maine’s performance on April 4th against the Cardinals. Maine went seven innings, allowing only one hit and two walks and struck out six. Almost any of Maine’s other performances could have qualified also, but this one was probably the best.

Best Defensive Play: This one goes to both Jose Valentin and Jose Reyes in the eighth inning of the first game of the season. April saw a lot of double plays for the Mets, and this one might have been the best. Scott Rolen hit a hard hit groundball up the middle which was stopped by a diving Valentin. He flipped to Reyes who made a leaping throw over a sliding Albert Pujols to get Rolen at first.

Biggest Surprise: Joe Smith. The side-arming righty was a longshot to make the team in spring and hasn’t given up a run yet. At the rate Willie Randolph used him in April, he’ll appear in 95 games this season. Shawn Green also deserves a mention here.

Biggest Disappointment: Delgado. The fact that he had such a huge April last season only adds to it.

Luckiest Player: Shawn Green. Green only hit twelve line drives in April, but had a batting average on balls in play (BABIP) of .393, which just isn’t sustainable over the course of a whole season. But you didn’t expect Green to hit .355 all season, did you?

Unluckiest Player: Paul Lo Duca only hit .237 in April. I do think Lo Duca was due to come back down to Earth after last season, but he deserved to do better than that last month. While his line drive rate was only slightly below Beltran’s, his BABIP right now is more than 120 points below his. He should expect a significant rise in that number. It doesn’t help that right now Lo Duca is just putting too many balls on the ground (53%!).

What’s in Store for May:

In May, the Mets start things off by finishing their series with the Marlins before taking their first West Coast road trip of the season where they’ll play four against the Diamondbacks and three against the San Francisco Giants. Then, they return home for a long, ten-game homestand against the Brewers, Cubs, and Yankees. After that, it’s back on the road to Atlanta and Miami before returning home to host the Giants.

The level of competition this month is a tick higher than it was in April, as there are no games against clear pushovers like the Nationals. The Diamondbacks and Giants have both been playing good baseball lately, and you know the Yankees are going to wake up sooner or later. The Mets might take a hit this month, record-wise.

It will help if Delgado and Wright remember who they once were and start hitting again, which, along with the recent injury epidemic, is all that’s keeping the team from running on all cylinders. Of course, it will help even more if the bullpen remains dominant, the starting rotation keeps doing its job, Green keeps hitting .350, and Chan Ho Park were to slowly transform into Tom Seaver.

But, like I said, you can’t have everything.

References:
Stats are courtesy of David Pinto’s Day-by-Day Database and the Hardball Times, as always.

You can see the double play at Mets.com’s Top Plays archive.