The New York Mets Hope-O-Meter: Opening Day

At various, likely random intervals throughout the season, I will be updating the New York Mets 2012 Hope-O-Meter. This meter, which has a standard 0-10 scale, will represent the optimism of the Mets faithful that the season won’t be a huge embarrassing failure. Well, after a somewhat impressive 1-0 win over the Atlanta Braves, the official Hope-O-Meter reading is a stellar 7.25.

Now, the shockingly high 7.25 rating is more in reference to what I didn’t see than what I did see. I had expected this Mets season to be like a bad Ben Stiller movie, one where you can see the awful awkward demise coming from a mile away, and you just have to cringe and watch it unfold. Ben Stiller sucks. But, what actually went down on Thursday was far from that. Let’s break down the positives (or, non-negatives):

1. Johan Santana looked sharp for most of his 5 shutout innings of work. He needs to build up his stamina, but his velocity was respectable, his command was pretty sharp and was able to fight through adversity. Fingers are still crossed, but it looks like this could be the best work the Mets medical staff has done since… ever.
2. David Wright not only came through with the game’s most timely hit, but his swing in general looked great. When David is at his best his swing is short and he’s driving to all sides of the field. When he’s at his worst, his swing is long and loopy. Yesterday his swing was concise, and the results were positive.
3. The bullpen didn’t explode. Four innings of lock down baseball. Shocking and somewhat arousing.
4. Daniel Murphy is healthy, and Daniel Murphy can hit. He wasn’t tested in the field yesterday, and when he is it might get ugly, but if you watch they way the kid approaches an at-bat, there is no doubt that his .320 BA last season was no fluke. Murph Dawg will definitely be getting on base this season, the question is whether or not Davis, Bay and Duda can drive him home.

So there you have it, and you may want to mark it down. Is it likely that the Hope-O-Meter never gets above a 7.25 for the rest of the season? Yes, its very possible, but right now we Met fans are riding high, because, as I’ve always said: if you don’t have hope, you’re hopeless.

Think about it…