“You know what the difference is this year. We have more baseball players. We’re more competitive as a team.” – anonymous Met

“We’re all motivated and we are counting on every single guy on our team. We are competing for sure. We’re competing against all the teams we’re doing all the little things and I think that’s the difference right now compared to last year. Everybody is motivated, everybody knows how important they are to this team.” – Johan Santana

“I think we have the right attitude. Maybe a part of it was the failure that we had has brought everybody a little bit closer. I think everybody realized we have to play as a unit to be successful. This city doesn’t want great individual performances, they want winners. Hopefully we can give them that.” – David Wright

“Holy crap!” – Frank Barone

The Mets have now swept their last two series, won seven in a row and went 9-1 on this home stand. Are they turning into …

Omar Minaya took a big gamble on the Mets’ starting rotation this year by not signing any free agents or trading for a tried-and-true starter. He insisted his pitchers in-house were as good as, if not better than, any others floating out there (besides John Lackey, of course). And money most certainly played a hand in that decision. The Mets have been winning because of and in spite of their rotation. So far Johan Santana, Jon Niese and Oliver Perez have performed about as expected, while Mike Pelfrey has exceeded everyone’s expectations beyond their wildest dreams, and John Maine has been worse than anyone could imagine. How soon before Hisanori Takahashi is inserted into the rotation instead of bailing out Perez and Maine every start? A reliable long man is important, but so is not having to use him two out of every five games. It’s still very early in the season, but let’s take a look at what the Mets’ rotation after Santana has done, and …