A little know stat about Aaron Heilmann...

So tonight, Aaron Heilmann came in with a one run deficit and for the third time this season turned it into a 3 run deficit.

I'm not going to say that Heilmann is bad. I'm not going to tell the Mets to trade him. That would be stupid. Aaron Heilmann is VERY GOOD in tie game situations. He's better than most closers in one run LEAD situations, but when your team (the Mets) is down by one, call in someone other than Heilmann.

I decided to look over the last two seasons. Heilmann has come into a game where the Mets were down by one 15 times since the start of the 2006 season. In 8 of those instances, he held the deficit to one. In the other 7 instances, he's added two runs to the opposing team's score. And its always two runs. Its eerie.

Thanks to Retrosheet.org by the way. Check this out:

5/23/06 - came in Phillies 6, Mets 5, left Phillies 8, Mets 5
7/23/06 - came in Astros 5, Mets 4 left Astros 5, Mets 4
8/22/06 - came in St. Louis 7, Mets 6, left with the same score
8/25/06 - came in Phillies 4, Mets 3, left with Phillies 4, Mets 3
9/22/06 - came in Nationals 3, Mets 2 and held it there
So he finished 2006 - 4 holds and 1 loss in the down 1 situation

5/1/07 - came in Marlins 3, Mets 2, left Marlins 5, Mets 2
5/3/07 - came in DBacks 4, Mets 3, left DBacks 4, Mets 3
7/1/07 - came in Phillies 3, Mets 2, left Phillies 5, Mets 2
7/28/07 - replaced Feliciano with score Nats 4, Mets 3 with runners 1st and 2nd, left Nats 6, Mets 3
8/21/07 - came in San Diego 5, Mets 4, left with the same score
9/20/07 - faced the Marlins 4, Mets 3, left with the same
9/26/07 - came in Nats 7, Mets 6, left with the same
He finished 2007 - 4 holds, 3 losses

That makes him 8 and 4 coming into this year.

4/6/08 - at Atlanta. Came in down 1-0, gave up the two run homer to Teixiera
4/8/08 - last home opener at Shea, despite Schoenweiss' best efforts the Mets are only down by one to the Phillies, 3 to 2. Walk, Bunt, Single, Walk, Double, and Heilmann turns that into a 5-2 deficit.
4/21/08 - tonight. He gives up a tough error to Lee, hits Ramirez, fights with Fukodome and losses (but fought him hard), gets DeRosa, gets Soto, and has Cedeno on the ropes when he gives up the base hit and they're down by two.

So he winds up 8 and 7.

Again, I'm not saying that Heilmann is bad. I'm saying get rid of him. I'm just saying: Maybe rethink using him down by 1.