Mark Down This Date, Mets Fans

After a loss to the Cardinals on July 2, the Mets were 41-43 and 4.5 games behind the Phillies. Since then, they've gone 31-14 and enter today with a 2.5 game lead in the NL East. July 2 happened to be the last game that Luis Castillo played before going on the DL. Coincidence?

The stats show that his replacements -- Damion Easley (.252/.301/.323, 3 HR) and Argenis Reyes (.264/.297/.299 since July 2) -- are an offensive downgrade from Castillo (.293/.368/.357). The fielding numbers are quite similar as well - Castillo (6 errors) has a range factor of 4.45 compared to 4.48 for Easley (5 errors at 2B) and 4.20 for Reyes (0 errors).

So why am I among the many Mets fans dreading his return to the lineup this evening? Sure, he's a below-average offensive player with bad knees whose best years are behind him and has a tendancy to loaf on the bases and fails to get to grounders in the hole and and was rumored to be a terrible unfluence on Jose Reyes and inexplicably was signed to a four-year deal in the offseason. But is he that bad? Can a single guy disrupt this intangible people like to call team chemistry? And does team chemistry a) matter, and b) exist?

Castillo's injury wasn't the reason the Mets started playing better baseball. Their starting pitching has been nasty, and they've hit more, with Jose Reyes, Carlos Delgado, and David Wright leading the way. Could they all start slumping now and see the Phillies fly past again? Absolutely. And if that happens, we'll be livid and unreasonable and looking for someone to blame -- and Castillo is gonna be that guy.

UPDATE: The Mets just announced they're gonna wait a few days before activating Castillo. This makes me happy. Hopefully "a few" means "the rest of the season."