Those Mets

TIM HUDSON BLANKS DECREPIT METS

In April, Mike Pelfrey seemed like one of the NL's top young pitchers. Four months later, the righthander is not going to Anaheim and he's limping into the All-Star Break, much like the rest of the Mets, who fell to the Braves, 4-0, on Saturday at Citi Field. Shortstop Jose Reyes seemed to re-aggravate a nagging oblique injury, the lineup seemed as punchless as ever, and Pelfrey endured the latest in a string of nightmare outings as the slumping Mets dropped their fifth game in seven outings. Pelfrey seemed to be pitching almost purely on guts from the start, struggling with a blister on his index finger and barely Houdini-ing his way out of jam after jam. That worked for four innings, but when the fifth came around, Pelfrey's magic ran out. The Braves rocked him for five straight hits, scoring four runs and taking control of the game. Chipper Jones led off the inning with a single, and Brian McCann followed with another single. Troy Glaus, Eric Hinske and Omar Infante continued the onslaught with singles, forcing Jerry Manuel to yank Pelfrey for reliever Elmer Dessens. Not that the Braves' barrage seemed like much of a surprise given Pelfrey's early struggles. He faced five batters in the first inning and barely escaped a bases-loaded, two-out jam in the second, getting out of that one by inducing a Melky Cabrera groundout. In the fourth inning, Pelfrey had an even closer call. Infante and Yunel Escobar led off with back-to-back singles and pitcher Tim Hudson loaded the bases, reaching first when his sacrifice bunt ricocheted of a charging Ike Davis' glove and fell for another single. But, somehow, Pelfrey got All-Star Martin Prado to ground back to the mound, and he alertly through home to start the double play. He got another Cabrera groundout to end the inning. Saturday's debacle was the latest in a string of lackluster showings for Pelfrey. He opened the year by going 4-0 in April, and had pitched like an all-star until recently. But he missed out on a berth and has surrendered four or more earned runs in three straight starts. He allowed 12 hits on Saturday, tying the career-high for hits allowed that he set just last week in a 6-5 win over the Marlins, and threw 93 pitches in four-plus innings of work. Pelfrey's slump was hardly the Mets' lone concern. In the sixth inning, shortstop Reyes, who returned to the lineup just three games ago, made a tough play, fielding a ball deep in the shortstop-third base hole and throwing to first. He got the out, but seemed to re-injure his strained oblique muscle that's been bothering him for about a week. He was replaced by Ruben Tejeda in the seventh inning. Then again, it wasn't as if Reyes had been raking; he'd gone 0-3 and fanned twice before exiting and was part of a Mets lineup that managed just four hits against Hudson. David Wright, Ike Davis and Jason Bay - the guts of the order - combined to go 0-for-9 with two walks, and the Mets never threatened Hudson, who cruised through seven shutout innings for the win. And without a fully healthy Reyes and a confident Pelfrey, this team might not threaten anyone.