The Mets come back home tonight to begin an 8 game home stand. First on the docket is the first place Phillies. Good news is they’re throwing Chan Ho Park and Jamie Moyer and we have Johan and Big Pelf going: Advantage Mets.  Here’s tonight’s lineup, with Cora batting second, Murph dropped and Jeremy Reed getting a rare start:

Reyes – SS
Cora – 2B
Beltran – CF
Delgado – 1B
Wright – 3B
Murphy – LF
Reed – RF
Santos – C
Santana – LHP

Tonight would seem like a typical Met letdown game, where they don’t score any runs for Johan. I hope I’m wrong. But that has been the trend all year. The offense has scored just 11 runs in Johan’s 5 starts the fewest for any member of the rotation. And going back to last season the offense averaged  only 2.2 runs for Santana in his 12 starts that resulted in losses.

Remember when we were all worried about Johan’s health in the spring? That seems like a long time ago now. He’s done everything we’ve asked him to do, except drive in his own offense. I wish we could get some runs early and give him a nice lead to work with more often. He’s almost expected at this point to stop losing streaks and prolong winning streaks. If he’s this good this early in the season, I can only imagine how good he’ll be in the 2nd half, where he typically does better.

Ok here’s a scenario for you, Top 9 Mets up 4-2 tonight, man on 1st Feliciano has already been used. Ryan Howard stepping to the plate. Would you use Ollie for one batter?? K-Rod and Putz may both not be available tonight after pitching the last two days, especially Frankie after throwing 28 pitches in the 9th yesterday. How about Johan with the extra rest throws a complete game instead.

After the Phillies for two we have the Pirates and Braves for 3 a piece. I will be somehwhat dissapointed if we don’t win at least 5 of 8 on this home stand. I’ll be at the game tomorrow night and believe it or not I’ll be watching the Phillies again live on Saturday at Citizens Bank Ballpark. Yes, I’ll be in Philly (rockin’ Mets gear) this weekend for a bachelor party of a relative that lives in PA,  part of the festivities include the Phils Braves game.