About a month ago (or so it seems), the Mets headed off for the West Coast, not knowing that what lay ahead was the baseball equivalent of the Donner Pass. Delgado. Reyes. Putz. K-Rod. Cora. Sheffield. Church. Beltran. All either went on the DL, missed games or had their contributions hindered by injuries. (And now Ramon Martinez — Plan C when it comes to finding someone to play shortstop — is hurt, too.)

Given all that, returning to Citi Field 5-5 isn't a bad accomplishment. But what a way to go 5-5! The Mets started off by taking three in a row from the Giants with apparent ease, leaving us all slavering with comparisons to the epic 9-1 road trip that served as formal notice that the 2006 squad was going to win the division in a walk. They then got edged in the San Francisco finale and got swept in L.A., including a slapstick affair that has to rank as one of the most appalling, humiliating losses in franchise history. So then, of course, they came in and took the first two from the mighty Red Sox, with Johan Santana willing them to win the first game and Omar Santos playing hero for the kind of once-in-a-blue-moon win that ensures you'll watch blowouts to the bitter end for the next two years — because, in the word of Joaquin Andujar, youneverknow.

A three-game sweep in Boston, with the lyric little bandbox hosting a substantial and vocal minority of Mets fans, was a lot to ask, and even with the Mets ahead in the middle innings, I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop: Tim Redding kept falling behind hitters and giving up loud fly balls, and you figured that the middle of the Red Sox order would see its luck even out before Redding could escape. The Bosox may have their problems, but that lineup is deadly, from the more-Eckstein-than-Eckstein Dustin Pedroia to the overcaffeinated Kevin Youkilis to the bland but deadly Jason Bay and J.D. Drew to the sad-eyed, wise Mike Lowell. All except David Ortiz — I felt for Big Papi, who looked absolutely helpless all series and was verbally scorched by fans who not so long ago would have sworn he had a lifetime pass for his past heroics. Ortiz hit exactly one ball hard, and it rocketed straight into Daniel Murphy's glove, leaving Papi to yowl and then offer a death's head grin at just how unfair the game can be.

(If you'll allow me a parental interlude, can I address whatever person at WPIX let an afternoon game be sponsored by “Drag Me to Hell?” I have nothing against horror movies and am a Sam Raimi fan, but that ad is way too intense for young kids, and anyone with a modicum of decency or common sense would understand that parents shouldn't be put in the position of shooing their children away from a baseball game every 40 minutes on a Sunday afternoon.)

The rest was enjoying the observations and memories and questions that any baseball game will yield if carefully attended to. Like wondering at how smooth Gary Sheffield looked in left field, and remembering how utterly discombobulated Lastings Milledge had been three years before. Or watching Murphy at first, still not entirely sure of himself but handling even the hard plays with a calm he's never exhibited in left on easy chances. Or (from the sublime to the ridiculous) wondering, in a particularly idle moment, where Murphy got his sunglasses. Ramon Castro was wearing the modern baseball standard Intergalactic Warrior iridescent shades, as was Sheffield, with Castillo opting for the classic flip-down glasses. But Murphy's sunglasses looked like he'd fetched them from a Dollar Store in Woburn. These are the things you wonder about when the game's out of hand and the only reason you keep watching is … well, because it's baseball, and how could you even ask that question?

We lost, and it seems like everybody's hurt, and who knows what that will mean. But we're right here in it, and tomorrow we start again. That's the whole point, ain't it?

The Mets will have to play the next two without me — I'm headed for Denver. (And yes, going to Coors Field. Like you had to ask.) Greg will keep you faithful or fearful, as the case may be. Speaking of which, Faith and Fear in Flushing: An Intense Personal History of the New York Mets, is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or a bookstore near you. Keep in touch and join the discussion on Facebook.

Bob Murphy lives. His most enduring lesson certainly does. Baseball, the original Murph told us countless times, is a game of redeeming features. Saturday night proved him indubitably and eternally correct.

Met upon Met redeemed himself at Fenway Park. They lined up like we incessant diet cola drinkers who live in a carbonated beverage container deposit state tend to do. They brought their psychological bottles and cans, all digned and dusty, to the reverse vending machine outside the proverbial Pathmark and they inserted one empty after another. Insert enough, you don't just redeem your deposits. You gain redemption.

To quote a great philosopher, “bottles and cans and just clap your hands — just clap your hands.” Coming from behind in the ninth to beat the Red Sox 3-2 is definitely worth a hearty round of applause. It's where it's at.

The Mets seem redeemed. The 0-4 Mets from Sunday to Wednesday are 2-0. The dropping-toward-.500 Mets of 2009 are suddenly stepping beyond it. The road-weary Mets have crossed the country and their winning ways have been refreshed in one of the sport's most inhospitable climes. The starter who couldn't stand up for falling down last weekend rose from the dead. The lineup and its at least five nine-hole hitters strung together enough live wood to bring home all the runs the unit as a whole would need. The defense that previously couldn't catch a break let alone a grounder caught everything in its path and some items that seemed destined to zoom on by. The closer who's ticked that he rarely gets to close got to close matters shut.

The system installed to see to it that bad umpiring could be overruled by modern technology had a redemptive flavor to it as well. When Omir Santos unleashed that lethal short swing on Jonathan Papelbon in the ninth, I thought it was too much to ask for it to go out. Then I thought it was too much to ask for it to be ruled to have gone out even though it did. “We always get screwed on these calls,” I informed Stephanie who is quite aware of our track record in call-screwage. Ah, but home run replay. That's a relatively new twist on a formerly rancid cocktail of arbiter incompetence. Even Joe West can watch TV. Even Joe West and his merry men — including Paul Nauert, ball cop — could see Santos' shot landed above the magic barrier that separates homers from doubles before bouncing back to earth. It took a while, but fingers were twirled and runs were assigned.

Omir Santos: short stroke, long trot.

The bottom of the ninth never felt it would be easily resolved. First off, where in the world was Francisco Rodriguez? When we last saw him, after a simple ninth Friday, he was high-fiving the heavens and rubbing his tummy as if quite full from all the saves he's been ingesting. Did he have a bellyache or something? No, we'd learn and cringe: back spasms. Say, that doesn't sound like something you want your otherwise almost infallible closer to come down with, especially when you're missing (deep breath) Delgado, Cora, Reyes and Church. Good thing we keep a spare Putz around for moments like these, but let's be clear: J.J. Putz, whatever he was doing in Seattle all these years, is no Frankie Rodriguez. Frankie Rodriguez has been, for a quarter of a season, everything we could have fantasized about, assuming your fantasies involve uneventfully blissful ninths. Why do you think he almost never comes up in the greater Metropolitan conversation except as an OK afterthought? Because Frankie Rodriguez has done nothing wrong, and we only talk at length about those whose imperfections overwhelm us (Johan Santana not included, as Johan Santana overwhelms life its own self).

Anyway, no K-Rod, just J.J., just a little old-time Braden Looperism to start the ninth, walking fucking Youkilis (so named since annoying Johan — anybody who annoys Johan is automatically cursed) and giving up that hot shot to Bay to put runners at second and third…WHAT'S THIS? Correction: Wright comes up with Bay's liner, thankfully keeping the ball in the infield, meaning the Red Sox have only runners on first and second with nobody…WHAT'S THIS? Wright throws to second? When it squirts into right field and puts runners on second and third…WHAT'S THIS? Luis Castillo retrieves Wright's off-balance fling and plants a foot on the bag and fucking Youkilis is OUT!

OUT! HE'S OUT!

That last bit of exultation was a little unwelcome on the couch because somewhere among the throw, the nab, the foot and my unbridled reaction to all of it, Avery the Cat let his nerves get the best of him. When he does — it happens either from my sneezing or my rooting — he will do a nasty leap across Stephanie's lap, which overrides my wife's approval for a nice play because it usually means she's getting scratched. But Avery's claws did no damage, thanks to a suitably rugged pair of sweatpants. Thus, the sweetest 5-4 putout you're ever going to see remained a joyous affair.

OUT! HE'S OUT!

But there was only one out. Then, after Drew lined hard but at Pagan, there were two out. Then Lowell found a hole, and I thought here we go again, first and second at least and why is Putz putting us through this — but the steady veteran hand of Ramon Martinez plugged the hole and wisely, calmly threw to first for the ballgame while callow youths Jose Coronado, Ruben Tejada and Jonathan Malo each gained valuable experience on the farm; all that folderol is there to drive Jason crazy, but it was a very nice play at the end of a very nice game in which there was lots of fine defense by the other team, too, and loads of good pitching by both pitchers, including — surprise, surprise — Mike Pelfrey. After he struggled through 34 pitches in the first inning, our starter somehow gave up only two runs then (thanks again, Luis) and nothing for six more. Big Pelf got some big professional help from some big mind in sports psychology and stopped making with the balks already yet. Didn't think I'd be saying — one start removed from his balking thrice — nice move, Mike. But calling the doctor really was.

It was all very nice Saturday night at Fenway, save maybe for Frankie's back and the late word that he was hospital-bound from the back pain. May he find the kind of redemption the rest of us got to cash in from this game. Cloaking oneself in doom only to emerge triumphant…I'll redeem that deposit any day.

(And if unspeakably cretinous amalgamations of evil have to have a good day, it's all right, I suppose, that it comes at the expense of other unspeakably cretinous amalgamations of evil.)

No deposits, no returns, just plenty of Faith and Fear in Flushing: An Intense Personal History of the New York Mets, available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or a bookstore near you. Keep in touch and join the discussion on Facebook.

Seeing how that worked out, before tomorrow's game I will pen an anguished attack on the rest of the starting nine.

I'm not the least bit ashamed to say my two-day vacation from the Mets was necessary and thoroughly pleasant.

Tuesday night's debacle also marked the end of a long run of late nights spent working at the computer; on Wednesday morning I dragged myself out of bed and swore that five minutes after Joshua was in bed that night, I would be asleep myself. The overtired have been making such empty vows for years, but I knew this promise would be kept, and at 8:20 p.m. I was out cold. I woke up 11 hours later, padded groggily to the computer, saw the Mets had lost, wasn't particularly surprised, and got on with the day, pleased that there was 0% chance the Mets could lose Thursday's game, what with it not existing and all.

Mets-Red Sox didn't seem like a particularly promising way to return from baseball exile, but we did have Johan Santana. And I had a chance to watch a ballgame with my old pal Chris, a.k.a. the Human Fight from our comments section. (And an absurdly passionate Sox fan.)

And what happened while Chris and I inhaled approximately 83 tons of Jake's BBQ? Well, the Mets made three errors, with David Wright and Ramon Martinez each managing to boot double-play balls behind Johan, the defense's usual victim. (To reiterate the stat everybody will reiterate, the Mets have made 35 errors this year, 12 of them in Santana's nine starts. How is that even possible?) A byproduct of this horrendous self-sabotage has been the increasingly common sight of Johan stalking around the infield and staring at his infielders like a junior-high cafeteria aide trying to figure out who threw that pudding. Fortunately for the Mets, Kevin Youkilis (so high-strung that I wouldn't be surprised to discover he spends his time in the dugout eating glass) made the mistake of barking at Johan for daring to hit him in the elbow with a pitch that was actually over the plate, which gave Johan someone to be enraged at who wasn't wearing the same uniform. (The Human Fight's observation: “Youkilis is a little bitch.”) The other fortunate thing was Julio Lugo demonstrating he's about as qualified to play shortstop as Ramon Martinez — his lazy, flat-footed non-pivot let Jeremy Reed stay out of a double play, after which the Mets tacked on the two runs they'd need.

So, Mets win. But forgive my utter lack of optimism, for reasons too numerous to be enumerated even on this wordy blog. Here are just a few:

1. Johan doesn't pitch tomorrow. Or on Sunday. Or Monday. Or Tuesday.

2. Gary Sheffield has been an admirable addition to the team so far, but sticking him in front of the Green Monster is cruel.

3. Jose Reyes remains in the limbo the Mets insist on using instead of the disabled list, perhaps because they think 22 or 23 players is better feng sui than 25.

4. Ryan Church, who even Jerry Manuel would admit is a very good outfielder, is now hurt.

5. Luis Castillo still has no range.

6. We all love David Wright, but when he fields a routine grounder and looks to first you can see him break into a sweat.

7. I don't know who the hell's going to play first, but I do know it's going to be a left fielder.

And then there's Ramon Martinez.

Early in the game, Gary Cohen said (with that slight tension in his voice that lets you know perfectly well what he thinks) that he'd talked to a Mets' assistant GM about what alternatives to Martinez the Mets had as Shortstop Plan C. Gary discussed the Tejadas and Coronados and Malos before explaining that the Mets settled on Martinez as the best man for the job. Left unspoken was the reason a baseball team would consider Ramon Martinez the best man for any conceivable assignment, but from hard experience with this front office I know the reason: It's that he's old.

Oh, sorry — I wasn't speaking Metese. It's that he's a veteran.

The older more veteran I get, the more it irritates me to see baseball teams — by which I mean my baseball team — throw away precious roster spots on players whose fitness for duty should be established by holding a mirror to their nostrils. Wilson Delgado. Marlon Anderson II. Miguel Cairo. Abraham Nunez. Ricky Ledee. Brian Daubach. Gerald Williams. Michael Tucker. Jose Offerman. Ricky Gutierrez. Jeff Conine. God spare us from this sad parade of tomato cans, has-beens and never-was's whose “experience” somehow outweighs their embalmed uselessness as ballplayers. (And don't tell me unearthing the occasional Fernando Tatis justifies the accumulated roster time given to those stiffs.) To this dreary list we now add the return of Ramon Martinez, a player who had a brief flurry of hits last year when we were all mad at Luis Castillo and therefore willing to overlook the fact that a couple of weeks earlier Ramon had failed to go first-to-third in a game the Mets lost to the Nats, 1-0.

Look, I don't know much about Ruben Tejada or Jose Coronado or Jonathan Malo, and I confess to reflexively overvaluing young players. But I will bet those three kids at least have the potential to do something more than hitting .240 and playing average defense. That's Ramon Martinez's ceiling, with a distinct possibility that we see even more of his by-now-familiar floor. I know, he had an RBI single tonight. Great! Sell high!

Emily and I have a ritual in our house of saying “hit it to anybody” when there are two outs, a ritual sometimes amended for nervous/comedic effect when some Met is being conspicuously stone-gloved. Tonight I found myself saying, “hit to anybody — except Wright, or Martinez, or Castillo, or Murphy, or Sheffield, or Pagan.” Which left, I realized, Reed and Omir Santos and whoever was pitching. I kept looking for defense replacements and realizing they weren't coming — that if the all-aces Bobby Parnell or Frankie Rodriguez let the MPH dip below 95, some Red Sock might subject us to a ball that would have to be gloved by Ramon Martinez and then again by Daniel Murphy. That's a terrifying prospect, one we'll have to endure as long as the Met front office insists on playing with guys who should be on the DL on the bench and guys who should be on the golf course at shortstop. In which case we'll all need another vacation soon.

Vacation or not, you should spend time with Faith and Fear in Flushing: An Intense Personal History of the New York Mets, available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or a bookstore near you. Keep in touch and join the discussion on Facebook.

According to Adam Rubin, Jose Reyes is not DL'd yet and may not have to be. The Mets are calling it tendinitis behind the right calf, a situation that can't imperil the leg. So he'll be back right away. Or soon. Or eventually. He's (drumroll, please) day-to-day.

It's the Mets and an injury. Believe what you will.

The catcher was a spy, but with apologies to Moe Berg, it was the leftfielder who wore the most cunning of disguises for nearly forty games. Turns out Daniel Murphy was a first baseman. He's been found out — praise the lord and pass the ammunition.

Now if we can solve the mystery of the incredible disappearing offense — featuring the shortstop who suddenly vanished midgame — the world may be safe for Metropolitans. But I wouldn't count on that happening for a while.

Yes, Murphy's masquerade, as beguiling as any incognito guise perpetrated on gullible Mets fans since Robbie Alomar impersonated a future Hall of Fame second baseman, has reached a merciful ending with the hint of a happy beginning. The kid from hunger from left field played first base professionally Wednesday night in Los Angeles. He wasn't Keith Hernandez. He wasn't even David Segui. But he wasn't Dave Kingman, and that's promising.

The Mets shouldn't be promising anything else right now, because they appear woefully incapable of delivering anything besides a mildly encouraging position switch. They can't deliver a big hit, they can't deliver a key run, they can't deliver a victory, certainly not over a quality team on the road. That wasn't a good formula for Dodger Stadium. It's not likely to work wonders in Fenway Park.

OK, so they've lost four in a row. OK, so they were swept three by L.A. OK, so they wasted one of their best non-Johan starts of the year. Not OK at all, actually, but it's not the losing that's been the Mets' bad moon rising every late night this week (and doesn't it feel as if the Mets were the third New York team to move to California?). It's the spectacular lack of fight they've put up in these four losses, and I don't necessarily mean the lack of grit, edge, “gredge” or any of the yada-yada many of us, myself included, have bandied about. They just look incapable right now of playing a full, well-rounded game of baseball. I don't know if they've done it more than a few times this year, even during the 11-of-13 good times.

Maybe it was my fever over the weekend, but I didn't think they looked that imposing while they were running wild on the Giants. They were getting on and they were delightfully aggressive and San Francisco was suitably rattled, but those weren't excellent all-around games. They were slugfests won by the Mets. They didn't look that good beating the Braves in that walkoff-walk win last week; it took a lucky call to push them over the top. They looked kind of disheveled against the Pirates, but the Pirates give you lots of wiggle room. It was wonderful beating the Phillies, but I didn't get the sense we were putting it to them. I got the sense the Phillies weren't so hot.

Hey, I'll take 95 instances of the Mets being partially awesome if they can half-ass their way to a playoff spot, but this team is frightening in both its inability to rev on all cylinders and its ability to zitz out on too many of them at once. Until proven otherwise, its talent is concentrated into a small clutch of players, one of whom is available only every five days — note we scored generously for Johan one time and took it out by inflicting penuriousness on Pelfrey, Redding, Maine and now Hernandez — and one who is rarely used when not protecting a lead. There are almost no leads now because the only two healthy talented regulars are being helped by almost no one. Every trip around the order in the Dodger series was an exercise in breath-holding and finger-crossing. C'mon Carlos! C'mon David! They came on. Nobody joined them.

Any team can have four fallow games. What's troubling is what lies ahead, and I don't mean just the Red Sox. Jose Reyes limping into the dugout in the third and then stomping frustratedly through it en route, probably, to the DL was a more harrowing sight than any five flies hit to erstwhile leftfielder Murphy. No team can lose its starting shortstop for any significant period of time and thrive, not unless you've got young Cal Ripken waiting to take over for Mark Belanger or something. The Mets don't seem to have that. They have Ramon Martinez. I've had a soft spot for Ramon based on his burst of big hits the last week of last September. That spot has now hardened and dried

Martinez — his nickname here was going to be “Bring 'Em Home Ramon” if he had tied it in the ninth — didn't lose the game. Putz and his cortisone shot didn't lose the game. Murphy's Tatisian production with runners on didn't lose the game (though when Wright moved Castillo and Beltran to third and second with a long fly to right with nobody out in the eighth, I groaned because I just knew that was our scoring opportunity right there). They all lost the game. Not Liván and his RDA of seven one-run innings. Not Beltran and Wright, of course. But the fightless Mets, the pulseless Mets, the directionless Mets, the depthless Mets, the Mets sans Reyes, Delgado, Cora and whoever else they don't got…they lost and it was pretty apparent they were going to lose. While not as flat-out embarrassing as a passel of their earlier losses, it was just as definitive.

A quarter of the season is now complete. The Mets are one game out of first with three-quarters of a season to go. That's the good news. Beltran, Wright, Rodriguez and Santana are the great news. Murphy playing one fine game at first is a swell development. Except for one bad pitch by John Maine to Casey Blake, the same could be said for Johan's backup singers of late. We all love Bobby Parnell and Brian Stokes, and Pedro Feliciano will have a job striking out Ryan Howard as long as he wants one.

But based on what we've seen, when those we count as assets veer to a bad week, I don't know who or what is going to pick them up. We're seeing a lineup not sustain the loss of its cleanup hitter. Now it will likely be without its leadoff hitter. Should the bullpen show a little more give, should the starters go not quite as long, should, god forbid, Daniel Murphy not be Vic Power…boy are we in trouble. David and Carlos have done almost nothing wrong for a week. They're due to not get the big hit, the big walk or even the big fly ball. Is anybody going to pick them up?

It's forty games in. Do you know where your Mets are?

I do: Barely over .500. It didn't take long to suss them out there either.

Rooting for a team that never seems to score enough? That's not new. That's Faith and Fear in Flushing: An Intense Personal History of the New York Mets, available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or a bookstore near you. Keep in touch and join the discussion on Facebook.