In a press conference Tuesday, COO Fred Wilpon apologized for the statements Mets general manager Omar Minaya made about to and about Daily News reporter Adam Rubin. Wilpon said he didn’t know Minaya was going to make those remarks.

Wilpon said Minaya will be making his own apology soon and that he is remorseful. Minaya still seems to have the support of the Wilpons. Fred Wilpon even went as far as to say Minaya’s job is safe.

Read the story here.

It’s a good sign that the Mets ownership is willing to make this move. Once Minaya makes his apology, the rest of the organization can move on from this ugly mess.

What do you think of Wilpon’s apology?

Mike Pelfrey threw 6 1/3 shutout innings and got out of a few jams to get his eighth win of the season. Jason Marquis, who had won three out of his last four decisions, gave up enough small ball to take the loss.

Pedro Feliciano pitched in yet another game and recorded five outs, three by strikeout. Sean Green then came into the game in the ninth to finish the game with a double play.

There weren’t the offensive fireworks that last night’s game had, but the Mets batters hit in enough opportunistic moments to score three runs in the first four innings. Luis Castillo scored the fourth run off of a Daniel Murphy single, even though replays showed Castillo was clearly out. It was one of two hits Murphy had.

Castillo also had a hit and an RBI in the game. Both David Wright and Alex Cora also had two-hit games.

The Mets are now just three games under .500 and 5 1/5 games behind in the Wild Card race. The Mets have a chance to build on tonight’s win as Johan Santana takes the mound Wednesday night. Hopefully, Santana will have a better outing than he did in his last start when he allowed four five runs.

Angel Pagan CF
Luis Castillo 2B
David Wright 3B
Daniel Murphy 1B
Jeff Francoeur RF
Cory Sullivan LF
Brian Schneider C
Alex Cora SS
Mike Pelfrey (7-6, 4.99 ERA) P

The Mets hope to keep their win streak alive, but they’ll have an uphill battle as they face the Rockies’ Jason Marquis, who is 12-6 with a 3.49 ERA. Marquis is trying to pitch threw a blister and won his last game against the Padres with it.

Can the Mets keep up their offensive pace? They’ve scored another seven runs last night. That’s now 29 runs in their past four games. The Mets also hit two more home runs in last night’s game. Francoeur kept up his hot streak by drilling another and, of course, everyone knows about Fernando Tatis’s game-winning pinch-hit grand slam.

Read the wrap-up of last night’s game in which the Mets’ offense was firing on all cylinders again. Fernando Tatis’s pinch-hit grand slam, his second this year, was an amazing sight to behold if you were watching it and was the first one in nine years. He’s been hitting into double plays so much lately that a feeling of dread immediately settled on all fans who were watching. But he came through in a big way and helped lead the Mets to the win.

The Mets have won three games in a row for the first time since May 29 when they swept the Nationals and won the first game in a series against the Marlins. However, for the second straight game, every other team in the division also won their games, so they didn’t gain any ground in the division. They did gain ground in the Wild Card race and are now 6 1/2 games behind the Rockies.

The other news of the day, of course, was SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: "In today’s The Journal News", url: "http://mets.lohudblogs.com/2009/07/28/in-todays-the-journal-news-9/" });

Angel Pagan CF
Luis Castillo 2B
David Wright 3B
Daniel Murphy 1B
Jeff Francoeur RF
Cory Sullivan LF
Brian Schneider C
Alex Cora SS
Oliver Perez (2-3, 7.68 ERA) P

With all of the Mets injuries, it didn’t take long for almost-rookie Daniel Murphy to start batting in the cleanup spot. He was penciled into that spot on Saturday where he promptly went 2-for-5 with a run and an RBI. He wasn’t as good on Sunday, only getting one hit in five attempts and striking out twice.

The name Daniel Murphy probably doesn’t strike fear into the heart of opposing pitchers. My guess is that the reason Murphy is batting in such an important position is to split up righties Wright and Francoeur. How else to explain not putting Francoeur there, especially since he’s been exhibiting some more power lately with a couple of home runs to boot?

That’s what happens when your biggest offensive threat left on the bench goes to the disabled list to join the other offensive threats in Carlos Delgado, Carlos Beltran and Jose Reyes. Now with Gary Sheffield on the DL, the Mets are without their home run leader. It’s a sad state of affairs when your top home run producers in Wright and Omir Santos are in a tie with six apiece. Lately, it’s been enough. Let’s see if it’s enough tonight.

Mets general manager Omar Minaya announced a little while ago that they have dismissed vice president of player development Tony Bernazard.

He had been in the role since 1994 but had been the center of controversy lately after he allegedly ripped his shirt off and challenged members of the Binghamton Mets to a fight. He also has had words with closer Francisco Rodriguez.

Many still suspect that Bernazard was a major factor in the firings of Willie Randolph and Rick Peterson. Talk radio hosts and fans alike had been calling for his resignation.

What do you think about the firing of Bernazard? Did he deserve it?

Visit the jump to read Minaya’s statement, thanks to Mets.com:

Last week’s question was: How should the Mets management treat the rest of the season?

Here are the results:

The season is over. Time to start making trades and developing young players for next season.—35 percent
Wait until core players come back to see how the team plays before raising the white flag. —16 percent
Fire Omar Minaya.—16 percent
Fire Jerry Manuel.—1 percent
Fire Minaya and Manuel.—20 percent
“Never stop, never stop fighting till the fight is done.” – 12 percent

Some 37 percent of you wanted someone fired, whether it be Manuel, Minaya or both. Still more of you are still optimistic that the Mets still have a shot. Well, time will tell with this 10-game homestand starting tonight against the Colorado Rockies. The consensus is if they can win three games out of four from the Rockies, they’ll have a chance in the Wild Card race. If they get swept, they’re done.

A series win against the Astros over the weekend was a nice momentum builder heading into their series against the Rockies. It was their first series win since they took two games from the Reds before the All-Star break, which coincidentally is when they had their last two-game winning streak. This time they won’t have the All-Star Game to break up that momentum.

Jonathon Niese provided a breath of fresh air to the pitching staff, while Livan Hernandez limited the damage to three runs in yesterday’s game. He settled down nicely and pitched six more solid innings. The two of them combined to win two games against an over-.500 team. Oliver Perez looks to keep up the win streak tonight.

Obviously, it’s not all about the pitching, and the Mets’ bats erupted for 22 runs in three games. They even scored enough to win Friday, but Johan Santana wasn’t his usual sharp self, giving up five runs to take the loss. They did all that without Gary Sheffield, who was placed on the disabled list. David Wright, Jeff Francoeur, Luis Castillo, Angel Pagan and Omir Santos have been handling the bat well lately. The Mets are even hitting home runs again. They’ll need to continue that offensive outburst to have a chance to compete for the Wild Card.

This week’s poll question is: What will the Mets’ 10-game record be during this home stand?

Congratulations to Adam Lipkin of Watertown, Mass., who got last week’s contest question correct.

Whom did the Mets play against in their home opener this year and what was the result of the game?
The correct answer is the San Diego Padres and the Mets lost that game 5-6.

Lipkin will get a copy of “The NY Mets 1986 World Series Collector’s Edition DVD Set.”

This was the last week of the Mets Contest. Thank you, everyone, who participated. Hopefully, there will be a similar kind of contest in the near future. Until then, please keep reading.

After a rocky first inning, rookie Jonathon Niese settled down and delivered a great pitching performance, allowing only one run to the Houston Astros. The Astros scored their only run in the first after Niese walked two batters and gave up one of the four hits he would allow all night.

After the first inning, Niese retired 10 batters in a row. He only struck out three batters, but he drove the Astros into the ground and induced a couple of double plays.

The Mets offense exploded for the first double-digit scoring effort since June 24 when the Mets beat the Cardinals 11-0. They had a multiple-home run night, three to be exact, for the first time in recent memory.

Jeff Francoeur launched a three-run home run in the fifth inning. It was one of four RBI on his two hits tonight. Omir Santos had a solo homer in the sixth. David Wright finally ended his home run drought in the ninth inning with the game out of hand. It was his first home run in 75 at-bats.

The Mets’ scoring started off early in the first inning when they walked and had three hits. Daniel Murphy scored two with a double, Francoeur had a sacrifice fly and Cory Sullivan drove in Murphy. Angel Pagan, Santos, Luis Castillo, Murphy and Francoeur each had two hits.

Once again, the Mets didn’t gain any ground on the Phillies as they blew out the Cardinals, 14-6.

The Mets can make this a 4-6 road trip if they can defeat the Astros on Sunday. Livan Hernandez tries to build on his last strong outing. Hopefully, tonight’s offensive outburst wasn’t a fluke.

Mets management placed Gary Sheffield on the 15-day disabled list before today’s game against the Houston Astros. Sheffield apparently left Jerry Manuel’s office bewildered and a little bothered, according to Mets.com. He had taken batting practice an hour before and seemed to be fine.

Because Sheffield hasn’t played in more than a week, he will be eligible to return on Aug. 2. He left the game against the Braves on July 17 after he tweaked his hamstring.

A lot of controversy had surrounded the injury. Sheffield attributed it to the All-Star break when he was vacationing with his family. He said he didn’t properly hydrate himself, leading to fatigue on the baseball field. That led to even more questions about the Mets medical staff.

Although Sheffield seemed a little angry when he first was told about the DL assignment, he later agreed it was better to be safe than sorry with a hamstring injury.

Do you agree with the Mets’ decision to put Sheffield on the disabled list?

Angel Pagan CF
Luis Castillo 2B
David Wright 3B
Jeff Francoeur RF
Fernando Tatis LF
Daniel Murphy 1B
Omir Santos C
Angel Berroa SS
Johan Santana (11-7, 2.92 ERA) P

The one bright spot on the Mets team right now takes the mound to try to eke out a win against the Houston Astros. Johan Santana hopes to continue his dominance over the team that has only scored two earned runs against him.

The bigger question is: will the Mets offense show up to support him? They did last time against the Braves to the tune of five runs, an offensive explosion for this team right now. However, only two of those runs came in the seven innings that Santana pitched. It was the game that saved the Mets from being swept in the ATL.

The Mets have to put an embarassing series loss to the Nationals out of their minds and focus on the task at hand—supporting Santana. If they can’t do anything else in this almost-sure-to-be-lost season, they should give Santana enough offense the rest of the year to compete for the Cy Young award. Though, I wonder how many teams have had a Cy Young winner in a losing season.

Gary Sheffield and Alex Cora are still out of the lineup, allowing backups to backups to start the game. So, Castillo, don’t get ejected. Francoeur, try to catch every ball that comes to you. And all of you, stop hitting the ball into the ground unless it’s for a base hit. Is that so much to ask?

Newsday, citing more than one source, reported today that John Maine is going to have a second opinion on his shoulder, which suffered from a pinched nerve when he went on the disabled list on June 7.

Although he threw 65 pitches in a simulated game, he said he felt “discomfort” in the days after.  He attributes his lingering problems to pushing himself to come back too quickly both from arthroscopic surgery in the off-season and this DL assignment.

If it’s true that Maine is done for the year, it would just be one more nail, maybe the final one, in the coffin that is this Mets’ season.

Here is a wrap-up of last night’s 3-1 loss to the Nationals. The Mets only run came on an errant throw that landed in the Mets dugout after Angel Pagan hit a standup triple, scoring him. Otherwise, the Mets could’ve been shut out one more time. It was another pathetic outing with an error and no offense. The Mets lost the series to the Nationals. It can’t get much worse than this.

I’m sure you’ve heard all the talk about Mets vice president of player development Tony Bernazard and his temper tantrum in Binghamton. General Minaya Omar Minaya said the organization will investigate the incident. You can read more about it here.

What do you think about this incident? Do you care? Do you think Bernazard should be fired?

Angel Pagan CF
Luis Castillo 2B
Daniel Murphy 1B
David Wright 3B
Jeff Francoeur RF
Cory Sullivan LF
Angel Berroa SS
Brian Schneider C
Mike Pelfrey (7-5, 5.07 ERA) P

The Mets try to win only their second series since taking three out of four from the Cardinals on June 25. They’ll make that attempt against the Nationals’ Craig Stammen, who is coming off of three quality starts.

Pelfrey is coming off the worse game of his career after giving up nine runs, including two home runs, to the Braves. He’ll need to turn it around in a hurry. Pelfrey beat the Nats in his only appearance against them this season but has a 2-3 record before 2009.

The Mets are hoping a couple of Angels (Pagan and Berroa) can provide them with a lift. Pagan leads off again and has been a nice catalyst, even if batters behind him don’t give him a lot of help. Berroa gives Alex Cora a day off and starts at shortstop.

Sullivan also gets a start tonight. Maybe skipper Jerry Manuel hopes an infusion of fresh blood will shake the Mets out of their offensive doldrums. The only problem is neither is a heavy hitter, so don’t expect any home runs coming off of their bats.

The Mets will look to Francoeur and his hot bat for the offensive explosion they need. He’s batting .363, with seven RBI and a home run since joining the Mets.

There is some good news on the injury front as John Maine and Jose Reyes played a simulated game in Port St. Lucie. According to Mets.com, Reyes had two hits including a double, but he wasn’t running at full speed. He will do some full-speed running on the infield grass before trying to move to the base paths.

Maine pitched 65 innings threw 65 pitches. The Mets will see how he feels tomorrow before deciding what to do next.

In other injury news, Jerry Manuel said that if Gary Sheffield doesn’t play in Friday’s game, he could be headed to the disabled list as well.