Mets know it all comes down to players

The Mets can't be mathematically eliminated in April. But with an unforgiving public already calculating the Tragic Number, they tried all the conventional methods to ward off a lethal combination of bad luck and just plain ugly baseball.

Terry Collins fired one of his bullets early in calling a clubhouse meeting during the Mets' first homestand. Sandy Alderson sent not one but two disappointing players packing in Blaine Boyer and Brad Emaus. This past week, the team even engaged in a ceremonial destruction of a rolling toolbox used by the relief pitchers to cart around candy, bug spray and nail clippers.

On a runway wall just below the dugout stairs, someone even hung a horseshoe adorned with four-leaf clovers and bearing the words "Good Luck."

But reviving the Mets, and salvaging any small part of this season, was never going to be about Collins, Alderson or the ritual smashing of defenseless bullpen buggies. That responsibility belonged to the players. Now, on the heels of R.A. Dickey's man-in-the-mirror lecture last week, the Mets have come to that understanding.

The result has been a three-game winning streak, extended Saturday by a 6-4 victory over the Diamondbacks. It featured another solid start by Dillon Gee, back-to-back homers by Jason Bay and Ike Davis, and two key RBI singles delivered by Daniel Murphy.

Arizona, like the Mets, is a struggling team mired at the bottom of its division. But the Mets can only deal with what's in front of them, and that includes their own reflections.

"I think you can blame as many people as you want," Bay said. "But I've been in Pittsburgh, where we went through three or four managers. We had the same players out there and still had the same result. I think at some point, the players -- us -- have to realize that. You can't go out there and expect it to happen or expect somebody else to do it. You have to take responsibility. That's just not here -- that's life."

The Mets had plenty of excuses at their disposal heading into the season. No Bay to start the year, no Johan Santana for half of it and no money to spend. There is the lingering distraction of upheaval at the ownership level, and the grim future of likely dismantling the roster for parts as if it were a Cadillac Escalade at a chop shop.

At 8-13, the Mets are on track to fulfill the lowest of the low expectations surrounding this team. But it's not an irreversible trend, and as they have shown in the past few days -- they are capable of winning games.

Spurred by Dickey's eight-inning stint against Houston on Thursday, the rotation has pitched at least six innings in the last four games, with a 2.57 ERA. As for the bullpen, which has not allowed a run in that span, the Mets have settled on a 7-8-9 of Pedro Beato, Jason Isringhausen and Francisco Rodriguez, the trio that closed out Saturday's win. Switching to a pink Cinderella backpack for their sunflower seeds is not the reason, either.

"As professional ballplayers, you know whether or not you're doing your job," Isringhausen said. "Nobody needs to get in anybody's face. If it comes down to that, it comes down to that. But right now, I think everybody can look in the mirror, and as long as they're doing their job, we'll be OK."

That's a big if. But just over three weeks into the season, the Mets may have found answers to some nagging questions. Bay is looking like a force, Carlos Beltran seems stronger and Davis is an RBI machine who launches tape-measure homers. That could prove to be what a patchwork pitching staff needs to get through the tough times.

"I've admitted first impressions are important -- but so are lasting impressions," Alderson said. "So rather than something that's ephemeral, if you will, we need to establish over a period of time how we're going to play. If we just played to reasonable expectations -- not unrealistic expectations -- we're a lot better than we looked over a two-week period. At some point, it was going to turn around."