Although I feel ill and can think of a million more productive/healthy ways to spend my night, I have a ticket for tonight's game and I plan to attend.  It has become apparent that I need to find new hobbies.  I spend a fair share of my spare time drinking and/or watching baseball; each activity, more often than not, produces within me a sense of impending doom and soul crushing anxiety.  No, this is not a cry for help, but rather a reminder of why we follow this team: to suffer and to suffer horribly.  As Met fans we develop the courage to stare deep into the abyss, and to wake up the following day to do it all over again.

Anyone else going to tonight's game?  I will be in the Upper Deck.

Miraculously, the Mets with a winning percentage of .552 are tied with the San Diego Padres for the best record in the National League.  On the other side of the tracks, Washington and Florida are tied for last in the league with .430 winning percentages.  Do the math and you will see that only 122 percentage points seperate the best teams in the league from the worst.  I have looked at the standings in the NL for every year from 1977 until the present and I have found that this is the smallest range of winning percentages in the past thirty years.  The only year that comes close is 1983 when 142 percentage points sperated the Dodgers and the Mets.  

In addition to demonstrating the lack of a dominant team in the NL this year, I think that the small difference in winning percentages between the best and the worst highlights the difference between baseball and other American sports.  For instance, the difference between the best and worst teams in the AFC last season was 750 percentage points.  

PS - Who's idea was it to break the the strike shortened 1981 season into two?  

The New York Times has reported that Clemens will miss his scheduled start on Monday due to a strained groin.  He may miss up to two weeks.  

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/03/sports/baseball/03clemens.html?_r=1&ref=sports&oref=slogin

I usually do not experience schadenfreude when a player is injured, but Clemens, of course, is a special case.

Incidentally, as I write this the Yankees are losing 3-1 to Boston while the Fenway fans serenade them with chants of "Yankees suck."

Jose Valentin has begun playing rehab games for Class A St. Lucie, and he is projected to return to the Mets next week.  Willie Randolph has indicated that as long as Valentin is healthy, he will be the Mets' everyday second baseman.  Given Valentin's historical woes against left handed pitching (.588 career OPS and .599 in 2006), I have always questioned the wisdom of starting Valentin against left handed pitching.  If you add Easley's dominance against lefties this year in a limited sample (1.082 OPS in 40 plate appearances) to the equation, then, I believe, the decision becomes a no brainer.  Even if you write off Easley's performance this year as an aberration, his .764 OPS against lefties from 2004-2006 provides evidence that Easley will hit better against lefties than Valentin.      

The Post reports that the Mets "are further along in trying to secure Julio Lugo to be their every second baseman."  

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