The Most Important Thing From... Game 6, Mets v. Nationals, April 11, 2010

The Mets' bullpen continued its stellar performance, allowing only two hits and two walks over four innings while striking out three. So far in the young season, the group has been excellent.

Today's performance has come on the heels of several other impressive group outings:

April 10th: 3.1 IP, 0 R, 1 H, 2 BB
April 9th: 3 IP, 0 R, 0 H, 1 BB
April 8th: 3 IP, 0 R, 1 H, 2 BB
April 7th: 5 IP, 3 R, 9 H, 2 BB, Loss
April 5th: 3 IP, 0 R, 2 H, 0 BB

I'll save you a second by doing the math myself here. Over 21.1 innings, the Met bullpen has only surrendered three runs - that comes out to a microscopic 1.26 ERA. Their control of the basepaths has been even more impressive, with their with WHIP of 1.12 proving that the low ERA is no fluke.

In fact, the only members of the pen to cough up runs are Hisanori Takahashi, who has looked extremely impressive thus far; Jennry Mejia, who everyone thinks the world of; and Sean Green, who is already on the disabled list and may not ever see the light of day in Flushing again. Nieve, Igarashi, K-Rod, Feliciano and Valdez have all escaped unscathed thus far.

No bullpen is going to manage a 1.26 ERA all season, but the early results have been encouraging. The Mets have been a mess so far in general, and those stellar numbers have been posted against our weakest intra-division rivals, but the bullpen has looked deep and varied.

With guys settling into roles, it may be a long season for teams looking to make comebacks against our Nine. If the starting pitching can deliver us some leads, we might be on to something here.