Big Roadtrip Early in the Season for Mets, Jerry

Starting Tuesday the Mets go on a 6 game road trip which will take them to see two divisional favorites in both the Rockies and Cardinals.  The magic number for the Mets, I feel is 3 on this roadtrip.  While for Manuel, I think it's 2.  By that I mean that the Mets need to split the road trip at the least for the fans to remain mildly confident in their ability to compete this year.  As for Manuel, if this team doesn't win 2 games or more, he could get one of the quickest hooks in major league history.

In Colorado the Mets will throw Maine, Niese and Pelfrey in that order.  They will face Greg Smith, Aaron Cook and Jorge De La Rosa respectively.  The Mets may have gotten a little lucky in that they're avoiding Ubaldo Jiminez, but Cook and De La Rosa are no slouches.

However...

The series in St. Louis will not be a fun one.  The Mets will be sending Ollie, Johan and Maine up against Garcia, Carpenter and Wainwright.  Yikes.  The only somewhat relieving part for the Mets is that Carpenter hasn't been great so far this season.  On the flip side of that though is that Jaime Garcia and Wainwright were both good in their first starts of the year.

This is a big early season test for the Mets.  And should they not pass this test, or be "unprepared", I wouldn't be surprised to see someone take more than the blame this time...