Has anyone noticed that David Wright and Carlos Beltran have been back in the lineup for a while now but yet the team is no better?

I understand that Johan Santana is gone and that the remaining starting pitchers have been inconsistent at best. But I would have expected that the Mets should have done better in September, at least as a spoiler.

But that has not been the case as the Mets simply have rolled over the entire month. The Mets are a miserable 6-15 in September. They have played 18 games against teams with playoff possibilities. In those games the Mets have tanked at 4-14. They have won two series the entire month defeating the Cubs and Nationals two games to one. They lost all the other series and were swept in two of them.

I never expected the Mets to even play .500 this month but a .286 winning percentage is intolerable. My fear is the Mets will assume that everything that went wrong this year was because of injuries. And while injuries have derailed the Mets season, there certainly are other issues contributing to the problem.

Have the Mets thrown in the towel? If so then what does that say in regards to Jerry Manuel? If they are trying the best they can, then the Mets are going to have to do something radical over the off season. Standing pat is not an option. If that happens, Citi Field will be quite empty next season.

I had expected and assumed with the return of Wright and Beltran that the Mets could have finished the season at around 77-85 and played the spoiler. That certainly was not a lofty goal. Instead the Mets are likely going to finish with around 94 losses not even winning 70 games and having no impact on the races.

Last night, the Mets lost the fifth game in a week to the Atlanta Braves who are fighting for something. Had the Mets shown the same intensity and drive in 2007 and 2008 the Braves and Marlins are showing this year, they would have made the playoffs instead of choking.

In fact, the Mets are choking this September too. For the third season in a row, the Mets are not able to achieve their goal in September. Although the goal this season is much different than the last two years, we should have at least seen the Mets fighting for something, at the very least for pride.

I find myself in a strange position. I actually have to agree with Mike Francesa. I have often been critical of the Yankee centric talk show host but he may be correct in that the Mets do not have the right chemistry to win. They are missing that player who will show them the way, who has the killer instinct to win at all cost.

Perhaps I am being overly critical because it is so hard to watch this team play right now. The season has ten games left. Jerry Manuel has stated he would like to see these remaining games mean something. So far, all they seem to mean to the Mets is get them over with so they can go home. I’m beginning to feel the same way.