Home, Horrible Home

This is a staggering statistic. The Mets are 40-36 at Shea Stadium this season. They are one of the only division leaders to have a significantly better record on the road than they are at home.

And at this rate it's not unfathomable for them to finish with a .500 record at home for the year. (let's hope it doesn't come to that)

Winning At Home

The Mets have not been winning at home. For some reason they like going out on the road. They love Arizona. Recently they seemed to like Atlanta. However, they're not too fond of Philadelphia.

But why is this team having some trouble winning at home? They got swept by the Phillies at home. They have trouble sweeping a series at home when they win the first two (a la Dodgers two weeks ago). I'm not going to even talk about last year's NLCS performance at home.

If you look at the batting averages of Beltran and Delgado, their averages are tremendously better away than at home. I don't have an answer as to why this is the case. You can blame it on Shea Stadium being a pitcher's park, but that's just a lame excuse.

I think it comes down to lacking a killer instinct. The Mets haven't found that instinct that allows them to put a team away, and once their put away kick 'em so they don't get up. Sure it sounds harsh, but you need that to win championships. Look at Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods and you can tell that they have that instinct.

Baseball is the ultimate team sport so it requires every player to embrace this type of attitude. I can see it in Jose Reyes. I see it in David Wright. I can also see it in Luis Castillo.

I really want to see it in our bullpen though. If they get the type of confidence that breeds a killer instinct, we'll see a vast improvement in their performance.

This is the last big home stand of the year against two big opponents (Braves/Phillies) and one who would like to be a spoiler (Astros).

Let's welcome them to the Big Apple.

Home Sweet Home?

The Mets closed out their home stand with a 6-2 loss to the Dodgers, making their record for this 6-game stint at home 3-3.

The Mets have a better record on the road this year than they do at Shea Stadium. I'm not sure if that's good or bad. How great is it to be able to go win games on the road? But on the other hand if you can't win at home doesn't that kind of make your road record null? What good is home field advantage? Are we that anxious to move into Citi Field?

The comfort I take is that the next 10 games are away from Shea Stadium. If you thought the West coast trip was long, that's nothing compared to a this one which includes 4 games in Philly, 3 in Atlanta, and 3 in Cincinnati.

This is it folks. The last long road trip of the year. If we finish this road trip by winning 7 of 10, I'll be happy. And it might just put is in prime position for the pennant. But let's not go there yet.