Hurricane Irene has come and gone, blowing through New York with great force but causing minimal damage. The Mets have had 2 days off due to Mother Nature, but now the skies are clear and the sun is shining. The dust has settled, the waters have receded, and the tree branches have all been cleaned up. Now, it’s time for baseball to resume, and the Mets will do so with a crazy 5-game series against one of their biggest bugaboos, the Florida Marlins. The set begins with a single-admission double header on Monday, and the Marlins don’t leave town until late Thursday night.

The dog days of summer have not been kind to the orange and blue this August.

The Mets are fading fast into obscurity as the dog days of summer quickly weed the pretenders out of the playoff race. After getting swept by Arizona the Mets are now the proud owners of a 5 game losing streak- tied for their longest since early April and the 2nd such streak this month. They have fallen 20.5 games out of first place and 11.5 out of the wild card lead, and since the injuries to Jose Reyes and Daniel Murphy the Amazins have nose-dived in the NL, going from “long shot” to “no shot.”

There were no magical heroics Wednesday night at Citi Field. A comeback win was not in the cards. Instead of celebrations and cream pies the Mets were left shaking their heads after their 9-5 loss to the Padres, and they had no one to blame but themselves.

A bad outing from starter R.A. Dickey, failed clutch hitting, and a total lack of fundamentals all doomed the Mets, as the Padres led from start to finish and finally notched a win in the 4-game series.

Will Venable paced the Padres with a 4-5 effort, including a triple to lead off the game followed by the first run to make it 1-0. R.A. Dickey got pounded to the tune of 6 hits and 5 runs (3 earned) in 5 innings. He suffered his 11th loss of the season, and raised his ERA to 3.75. There have been a lot of nights when R.A. Dickey took a loss he did not deserve. Tonight was not one of those nights, as he put the Amazins in a 5-0 lead by 8:15pm.

With their ace starting pitcher, star young first baseman, star closer, and star outfielder already gone via injury or trade, the Mets have now lost two more very important pieces of their team for extended periods. Jose Reyes and Daniel Murphy, number one and five respectively in the NL batting race, both left Sunday’s game due to injury, and both appear headed to the disabled list. Reyes is projected to miss the next 2-3 weeks with another hamstring strain, while Murphy is lost for the season with an MCL tear. Ruben Tejada and Mike Baxter have been recalled from the minors to replace the latest injured Mets.

The tying run was in scoring position. The winning run was on 1st. The bases were loaded with 2 outs, and the Mets held a slim 4-2 lead. The capacity crowd in Cincinnati was on its feet as Brandon Phillips tried to play hero. But the veteran closer Jason Isringhausen buckled down and struck out Phillips on 3 pitches to end the game, preserve the win for R.A. Dickey, and pick up career save number 296.

It was an entertaining game to watch from start to finish between 2 even teams. The Mets and Reds both entered the night with identical 50-51 records, and it was nothing but zeros early as a pitcher’s duel emerged between Dickey and Mike Leake.

It was a well deserved 5th win for the quirky, yet effective R.A. Dickey.

David Wright returned from his lengthy DL stint and provided a great spark in the middle of the Mets lineup this past weekend in Miami. Unfortunately it did not translate into winning baseball, as the Marlins took 2 of 3 from the Mets and knocked them back below .500. Now the Amazins continue their road trip with a 4 game series in Cincinnati. The Reds are the defending NL Central champions, and are very much alive in 2011, just 3 games out of first. However, they are not nearly the same team as last year, and share the same record as the Amazins. Boy, if only the Phillies and Braves WEREN’T in our division, right?

The All-Star break has come and gone, and so has Francisco Rodriguez. Trading K-R0d was almost certainly the right move for Sandy Alderson to make, but in the short term it makes the Mets a worse team for the rest of THIS season. Now the Amazins will have to find a way to stay above .500 and remain on the outskirts of the wild card race without their star closer. It’s a daunting task for an already overachieving team as the second half of the season begins, and with the Phillies coming to town it gets even tougher.

Gone are the days of Frankie Rodriguez closing out games for the Mets. Can anyone step up and replace him this season?

When the Mets were 5-13 and we were all accepting our fates as the punch line of New York, not one of us die hards was looking forward to this July version of the Subway Series. We all pretty much assumed the Yankees would be running away towards another 90+ win season (they are), and the Mets would be in the middle of a fire sale, already looking towards 2012 (They are not!).

Here we go again with the Subway Series in July, and believe it or not it actually means something for the Mets!

Instead, the Amazins are shocking the city and making a push to get in the wild card race as we approach the All-Star break. Coming off a great 4-2 road trip against two first place teams, the Mets now come home for a Subway Series that has a lot more juice than we thought it would have. And this is not JUST a weekend for bragging rights- these games are huge for the orange and blue and their standing in the National League as well.

Most Mets fans went into this road trip before the All-Star break worrying about a major losing skid. Heading off to play two American League divisional leaders on the road, followed by a Yankees team with the 2nd best record in the AL, the “feel good story” that has been the overachieving Mets in 2011 looked like it could be headed to an end, especially after the first game of the trip ended with a convincing 8-1 Rangers win.

But the Mets fought back to win the last 2 games, scoring 22 runs in the process and getting back to .500 yet again. They now have another shot at getting over the hump for the first time since early April, but they are playing one of the better teams in baseball- the Detroit Tigers.

A week after the Mets lost on a game ending balk, they got their first walk-off win of the season on a hit by pitch. With 2 outs and the bases loaded in the 13th inning Brad Ziegler nipped Justin Turner in leg, ending a game more than 5 hours after it was supposed to start in the most anti-climactic of ways.

It was a day that started badly for the Mets, as they found out Ike Davis will miss several more weeks, and possibly the rest of the season. But after an hour rain delay at the start and a 4 hour game, it ended in happy fashion as the Mets found a way to even the series with the A’s. They certainly didn’t make it easy though, as Frankie Rodriguez blew his 2nsd straight save in the 9th, and the team left 15 men on base.