So last year, the Mets were never once were any better than 11 games over .500, a point they reached just once, following a sweep of the Cubs in June. Their failure to exit that range-bound 6 or 7 over .500 while the rest of the division was worse during the season’s first months was the story of the year, until that club revealed all kind of other problems (injuries, underperformance, lapsed priorities and so on) when they ultimately revealed their level was not actually 6 or 7 games over but 6 or 7 games under.
So it’s with a small amount of trauma that I’ll note this team has so far twice had the opportunity to exceed last year’s high-water mark and twice failed to get there, and doing so with games that weren’t so fun to watch. We shouldn’t be losing to Paul Sewald, as nice a guy as he was (he once acknowledged me yelling “Sewald!” through the bullpen fence at the Cyclones park). If this is really to be as good a year as it looks like it can be, we can’t hover while the rest of the division struggles. Now’s not the time to hover–get to 20 over, a point at which hovering will likely get you to the playoffs.
Catching up again on the comings and goings, we saw Stephen Nogosek and his ridiculous 85 jersey come ago go, and recently welcomed back Jake Reed, who’s still wearing 72. James McCann’s broken hamate–a bad injury for a catcher who already can’t hit, I’d reckon–is out for several weeks and Patrick Mazeika is back. 
That’s notable only because Mazieka, unlike Nogosek or Reed, got reassigned a normal number and what was 76 last year is now 4.
I barely can either, but was reminded of it this week when its reverberations played out over this ridiculous road trip. Familia went to Oakland for an infielder called Will Toffey, whom the Mets employed as a minor leaguer for years until flipping him a few weeks back for Anthony Banda, a lefthanded reliever who became a kind-of star in Monday’s crazy win in Cincinnati.
Banda wore 77, becoming the first Met to get that number since David Peterson wore it last year. Also arriving for the first time this week was Geoff Hartlieb (who?) a former Pirate waived away from their org and scooped up by the body-hungry, first-place, beaten-up Mets, given No. 40 (already issued once this year to since-released gascan Jacob Barnes), and thrown out there. (Tuesday not Monday)
We also just grabbed a reliever from the Cardinals called Roel Ramirez whose career ERA is 81.00 (1 IP, 
Well the season remains frustratingly hopeless, and I’ll shortly be off to Flushing to watch Zack Wheeler (along with returning bullpen stiffs Avilan, Familia and Wilson) audition for the Yankees, but let’s take a moment to celebrate the naming of three deserving All-Stars from this year’s roster.
Hi you may have seen the enormous righthander Brooks Pounders debut the other day. There’s a guy who looks like his name, no? He’s wearing No. 46, last issued to Gerson Bautista last year and rarely if ever to a significant Met: Ollie Perez, Neil Allen (before he changed); Tyler Clippard (before he changed); Randy Niemann (before he changed). You get it. Anyway, you also know we needed the help and perhaps the big dude can provide some. So far, so big, so good.
Nogosek came along with the aforementioned Bautista and Jamie Callahan (remember him?) in the famous Addison Reed trade and has been having a good year in the minors. 72 is of course an outrageous number. Perhaps not as big an admission of not trying than dressing Jack Rheinheimer in it last year but you get the message. Another June, another Met club dangling to the notion of being relevant.