ATLANTA - It is a familiar cry, one that the Mets have relied on like a mantra for more than a year now.
Just wait until our players get healthy. Hold on until they get back. The cavalry is coming.
It arrived Tuesday night, but from the most unlikely of sources. Rather than the likes of Carlos Beltran or Luis Castillo, the injured pieces coming back, it was the lost boy of the Mets lineup, Jeff Francoeur. Only in the lineup because of an injury that sidelined Jason Bay and barely hanging onto that spot now, Francoeur delivered a ninth-inning home run off Billy Wagner to lift the Mets to a 3-2 win.
Perhaps more unlikely was that Francoeur tied the game by drawing a four-pitch walk in the seventh inning, coming around to score on a Chris Carter pinch-hit single. But for Francoeur it was a satisfying moment to come up with the solo blast over the right field wall in his hometown.
Francoeur has been only one of the Mets problems this season, not producing and eventually losing his job to Angel Pagan before getting a second life with Bay sidelined. But Francoeur is not the player that the Mets have been counting.
The only problem is this year the players arrived. But the wins have not followed. Instead as the stars arrived, the energy disappeared. The gritty play that endeared the team to fans and lifted the Mets into contention, 11 games above .500, somehow turned into a listless team a variation on the worst team money could buy.
"You've got to still hold out hope," Mets manager Jerry Manuel said. "You talk about how many games left we know what we went through, seven up, 17 games left. The foundational pieces I think understand that and I think they know what it takes. I just feel like we still can get on track. I feel very confident we can still get on track. I think we've got the pieces in place. I think we've still got a good streak left in us. I really do."
Okay, so maybe Manuel, the biggest proponent of the help is on the way speech, still is espousing it. But even he realizes that it isn't as easy as just bringing the pieces back to the lineup.
Beltran has still been a shadow of himself in centerfield. Castillo has found his glove covered with rust. And Oliver Perez? Well, we'll leave him out of this. But the point is the Mets' much-anticipated chance to put the lineup together for the first time since last May May 20, 2009 the last time that Reyes, Beltran and Castillo were in the lineup together before they returned after the All-Star Break hasn't helped and actually may have hurt.
The rust is one reason, but there is also an intangible that seems to have vacated the Mets since these pieces came back into the lineup.
"Well, yeah, sure, definitely," Manuel said. "When you have an (Angel) Pagan in center, he's a different player than Carlos, Carlos is a guy that glides and strides, looks like he's not doing anything but he is. When you have a young kid like (Ruben) Tejada at second, that a little different because of him being younger than Luis Castillo, so there is a different look to the team when that happens like that."
The Mets hopes of help propelling them towards the posteason took a turn for the worse when it became apparent that the pieces were still not nearly the players they were when they went on the disabled list. Beltran is still working his way back into form, as is Castillo.
It hurt, no doubt, that Bay went on the disabled list shortly after Beltran returned. But the real problem has been that the pieces have been far slower to show a semblance of their former selves.
"Yes it has," Manuel said. "I expected or anticipated that the process wouldn't take as long as it has. I thought we would be able to transition them in with other guys still playing well, but when that happened some guys didn't play. It set them back.
"We had some struggles offensively from the catchers position. Jason Bay was going through his struggles when you were transitioning in some players. David Wright was playing well. Jose Reyes was playing well. Pagan was playing well. It didn't appear to be enough. We were pitching pretty well, too. (Mike) Pelfrey's going through a little thing. Johan (Santana) went through a little thing. So a lot of things stopped. A lot of things stopped."
The Mets managed to get back on track for a night thanks to Francoeur, and also to R.A. Dickey, who hurled six innings of five-hit, two run ball. But he still left trailing in part to Castillo's troubles again with the double play. But Manny Acosta held the Braves at bay while the Mets mounted a comeback and Frankie Rodriguez finished off the Braves in the ninth.