Kuzul

It's been four weeks since I looked at the numbers put up by the New York Mets in the early part of the 2013 season. A month is a long time in baseball, and player performance can fluctuate over time. Unfortunately for the Mets, many of the early season positives have evaporated. Additionally, some of the negative stats from the first few weeks of the season haven't improved.On the optimistic side, the season is still young, and there is plenty of time for the Mets to turn things around. If they hope to be competitive, they are going to have to address a number of issues.Here's a look at some of the good signs so far for the Mets and some of the less-than-inspiring ones through the first six weeks of the campaign. Begin Slideshow

'Tis the season of giving, and Mets fans everywhere are hoping that they'll be given some outfield reinforcements prior to the start of the 2013 season. As it stands now, the options are pretty thin.Jason Bay's contract was mercifully terminated at the end of the season. Bay spent the better part of three injury-plagued years underperforming and getting booed. It was so bad that the Mets let him go while still owing him $21 million. He will try to resurrect his career out west, as he recently signed a one-year deal with the Mariners.For some unclear reason, the Mets traded their 2011 center fielder, Angel Pagan, to San Francisco in return for Andres Torres and ineffective reliever Ramon Ramirez. Torres was mediocre at best in 2012, hitting just .230. In an ironic twist, Torres will now be teammates with Pagan, as he signed a one-year contract to rejoin the Giants for ...

Last weekend, I went to Citi Field and saw Johan Santana pitch a masterpiece. Santana dominated the San Diego Padres over nine innings. The Mets won 9-0 and Santana had his first shutout since 2010. The lefty struck out eight batters, walked none and threw 74 of his 96 total pitches for strikes. What made his performance that day even more impressive was the fact that Santana is still coming back from major shoulder surgery after missing all of the 2011 season.Tuning in to the Mets’ game last night, it appeared early on that Santana did not have his best stuff. He walked four batters over the first five innings and ran up his pitch count. He did, however, keep a potent Cardinals lineup from reaching base on a hit.From the sixth inning on, the warrior in Santana came out. His poise noticeably increased and his stuff looked better than ...

Even though I am a lifelong Mets fan, I owe the 2012 team an apology. Like most Mets fans, I have become accustomed to losing and to regular bad decisions from the clubs’ upper management.Sadly, the fallout from the Wilpons’ involvement in the Bernie Madoff saga was just another in a long line of problems that have plagued the franchise and its fanbase. Since the Game 7 loss to the Cardinals in the 2006 NLCS, it’s been nothing but misery for the fans including two consecutive late-season collapses that cost the team playoff appearances in 2007 and 2008.As it became clear this past offseason that the Mets were not going to offer Jose Reyes the lucrative deal he deserved, all signs were pointing to more pain for Mets fans. When a team cuts ties with a home-grown fan favorite coming off a batting title in order to dump payroll, it’s not ...