Well, unless Jose Lima pulls off the baseball equivalent of pulling a rabbit out of his hat, this will be one bad road trip. If the Mets lose this afternoon it will be a 3 and 6 journey (and what then do I do tonight. I can't watch Mets replay when I know they lost)  How bad has this road trip really bin? Truth be told, the Mets lost some really tough games on this road trip to some very good teams. The first stop was Philadelphia, a team that had won 8 in a row. Pedro had one bad inning in that first game. With the Mets trailing 3 to nothing they scored 2 in the eighth and 2 in the ninth to tie the game (the Phils scored 1 in the eighth) only to lose in the bottom of the ninth when Aaron Heilman thought he had a better shot of throwing out Abreu than Lo Duca. After pummeling the Phillies the next night, they lost the rain shortened heart breaker 2 to 0. In that game, Aaron Rowand made that spectacular catch saving 3 runs.

In Milwaukee the Mets had the lead in the first game but then Lima and the bullpen imploded losing the opener 9 to 6. Once again the Mets won the middle game, that wild and woolly affair that resulted in a 9 to 8 win. Pedro went back to the mound on Sunday to try and win the rubber match. Again, he paid for a bad inning and again the Mets tied the game late only to lose via a walk off home run-ouch! After winning the opener in St. Louis by a nice margin, once again they lost a heart breaker last night. But what can you say? Mulder pitched a great game and give credit to Jason Isringhausen for striking out David Wright (I wouldn't want anyone else up in that situation) and getting Floyd to ground out.

The point is that there is good news here. Four of the five Mets losses so far on this trip were very close and could have gone either way. They didn't and that's life, actually that's baseball. Another point to make here is that the Mets still have a two game lead over the Phillies (don't look now but the Braves are just 4.5 back) with one game left on the road trip for both teams. So regardless of what happens today, the Mets will face the Yankees as a first place team for the first time in their history. Granted that doesn't mean much. Also let's not forget the great effort from Steve Trachsel last night. He gave up just one run (how did Roladn hit that ball?) He has pitched well in his last two starts and that certainly bodes well for the future.

I have no confidence in Jose Lima going today against the Cardinals and Albert Pujols. Lima has shown that he has nothing left. I think the only good news here is that once he blows up today, that will be it for Lima time. It will then be retire time. I for one will be keeping my eye on Norfolk's game this afternoon at 12:15PM. That's the game in which Bannister is making his rehab start. Maybe with a little luck, the Mets bats will explode today and they'll score a ton of runs. It would be nice to steal one if they could. After all in both previous series the Mets lost the opener and closer winning the middle game. Maybe in this series the Mets will do the opposite. Let's hope.