Bullpen Blows Another

It's becoming such an every day occurance you'd think it was almost fashionable for the Mets to build a lead for their starting pitcher only to see him exit and the bullpen to enter and the lead to be lost.

Last night it was Brian Lawrence's turn.

Not simply sufficient for the elder statesman to pitch 5 reasonably solid innings as the number 5 starter - four runs and four walks but at the plate, two hits on his own and two runs driven in. When he left the game for a pinch hitter in the 6th with a 7-4 lead.

Of course to get there, they had to squander a 5 run lead for the third time in two nights.

Of course, David Wright had to have an inopportune time for the yips, throwing away what should have been an inning-ending out and extending the miserable 8th inning beyond its shelf life.

Once again, Willie's favourite play thing, the incomparable Guillermo Mota, was summoned from the pen to make the game exciting.

Mota, in one inning nearly managed to give the lead back to the Pirates and when both he and Feliciano and perhaps the worst offender of all, Homer Heilman, were finished with their hideous outings, the bullpen collectively had managed to surrender 9 hits and 6 runs in a mere three innings of work and all this, lest yea forget, against a miserable team like the Pirates.

The loss is not the end of the world, of course. It really only meant they couldn't complete their sweep in Pittsburgh. Their lead in the NL East over the Phillies and the Braves remained 3 games and 3 1/2 games respectively.

But the loss is just a variation of this lousy bullpen theme that keeps creeping up with all the same culprits to be held to blame. And if they can't hold a lead against the likes of the Marlins and the Pirates to whom will they turn, with a rotation of starters who never make it past the sixth, to hold a bloody lead against a team that is actually good?

And yes, the Mets are capable of scoring runs in bunches - that much they've demonstrated but the question is, can they score more runs than their ineffective bullpen surrender every night?