Ring Rings (April 27): The Mets abruptly released veteran reliever Mike Matthews 27 on Monday and called up Norfolk lefty Royce Ring to the big club. Ring, who arrived in therefreshing 2003 trade that sent Roberto Alomar to the White Sox, suited up Tuesday in No. 22, which last belonged to lefty Al Leiter. As reported by Marty Noble at MLB.com, Ring said he won't be confused with his predecessor: "I don't have a cutter, I'll tell you that." Over the weekend, a sore muscle put starter Kaz Ishii 23 on the disabled list; in his place the Mets recalled Jae Seo, who remains in No. 26.

Bell Rings (April 19): After a comically tragic performance Monday in Philly the Mets disabled Felix Heredia 49 and recalled Heath Bell 19. Bell appeared tonight to wrap up a record-setting Met win. This team might be better than we thought.

Rough Start (April 8): Well, the Willie Randolph Era is off to a rotten start with enough caught stealings, caught lookings, walk-offings, bad-callings, grand-slammings, double-plays and double-switch debacles to last a while already. To that we add an emergency start Saturday by Aaron Heilman 48, back from Norfolk much sooner than expected given Mike Cameron's rush to return from an injury and subsequent retroactive DLing.

If at First... (April 4): Quick corrections to begin the new year: Manny Aybar debuted this afternoon in No. 36; and Felix Heredia wore 49. (Thank you Tom for the update; FU to MSG and Time Warner for not showing it to me). Also, Kris Benson 34 hit the DL, revealing Omar was probably foolish in having traded away Matt Ginter. That means Victor Diaz made the squad, and in a new number this year, 20. Meantime, it appears a move or two is on the near horizon as Benson is expected to miss three weeks and after today's performance you can bet the pressure will build on Braden Looper. Ugh. We did almost everything else right.

Play Ball! (April 3) The Mets begin the regular season Monday afternoon in Cincinnati. MBTN welcomes the following baker's dozen to the All-Time Numerical Roster:
3 Miguel Cairo
4 Chris Woodward
11 Ramon Castro
15 Carlos Beltran
16 Doug Mientkiewicz
17 Dae Sung Koo
18 Marlon Anderson
23 Kazuhisa Ishii
27 Mike Matthews
39 Roberto Hernandez
45 Pedro Martinez
46 49 Felix Heredia
68 36 Manny Aybar

The final roster came together this weekend when the Mets coughed up out-of-options pitcher Matt Ginter 13 in a trade to the Tigers for a stashable lefty reliever, Steve Colyer, and revealed that veteran relievers Matthews, Heredia, Aybar and Hernandez had edged out worthy youngster Heath Bell; while Bartolome Fortunato went down with an injury. The 12-man pitching staff probably cost powerhitting rookie Luis Garcia a spot on the bench. We suspect there will be plenty of churn in the bullpen, where there's too much age and many lefties, and that the need for a right-handed power bat on the bench will be apparent shortly, but today's not the day to be pessimistic, so, um, Let's Go Mets!