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Unless, of course, it's the Mets. When the Mets lose four games in brutal fashion, as they have in the past week, it feels like the fans are the ones being hurtled into the drink by some colorful, whirling, spinning contraption on Wipeout. Throw in that Sunday's 15-0 thrashing came at the hands of the Yankees and came because Johan Santana had the worst start of his big league career, and it feels like Wipeout hosts Jon Anderson and John Henson are taking turns kicking the groins of every Mets fan.

It's not good, for sure. And that Luis Castillo drop on Friday? Miserable. Absolutely, blisteringly, horrifyingly awful. My colleague Matt Cerrone posted Monday morning that Castillo's gaffe is the type of error we'll remember at the end of the season. Granted, all teams make boneheaded and terrible plays (and Matt's post didn't say otherwise), but the Mets do seem to be leading the league in inexcusable blunders per nine innings this season.

What does this rough stretch amount to? Well, four losses in six games to two good teams. That's not a good thing, for sure, but it's certainly not the end of the world or even the season. It's a rough stretch, that's all. A pitiful, terrible, horrible stretch, with bullpen meltdowns and managerial misdeeds and stranded runners aplenty. But the bright side is the Mets managed to take two neat victories amidst all that.

The dark side? I'd say the principal dark side is the glimpse of Santana's mortality.

The Daily News ran a graphic on Monday morning detailing Santana's last six starts -- across which he has a 6.50 ERA -- asking, "What's going on with Johan?"

I can't answer that, but I'd say none of the first three starts highlighted by the graphic really emphasizes his struggles. None of them was the type of stellar Santana performance we became accustomed to earlier in the season, but over the first two, he mustered a 15-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio in 14 innings, and in the third, he struck out 11 Nationals in six innings while getting visibly squeezed by (and growing quite frustrated with) home-plate umpire Sam Holbrook.

The last three have been a bit more worrisome. It's a small sample, for sure, and Santana cruised through his first few innings against the Phillies last Tuesday, but Santana's low strikeout totals and dip in velocity are causes for concern. He says he feels fine, and that a sore back, a blister and a cracked fingernail have not affected him, but who knows?

Maybe Santana's just a little worn out from carrying the Mets through April and May. After all, when you're Johan Santana, you don't often leave games early. The good news is, provided Santana's not actually hurt, he's not actually bad either. Smart money says he'll right the ship a whole lot sooner than later and be back to doing his Frank Lloyd Wright thing before you know it.

What Santana's hiccup exposes, more than anything, is just how good the Mets stars -- the ones still standing, at least -- have been this season. David Wright and Carlos Beltran are enjoying career highs in batting average, on-base percentage and OPS+. Francisco Rodriguez has a career-low ERA and WHIP. Santana, until his past few starts, was Santana.

That's not to say all those trends will continue, of course. Wright probably won't hit like this all year, nor will Beltran, and K-Rod will almost certainly blow one save that isn't Castillo's fault. But to know that is to know that Ryan Church will play better, and likely so too will at least one of Daniel Murphy or Fernando Tatis, and probably Mike Pelfrey, too. And of course, it's better than even money that Omir Santos will fall off.

Things will balance out. That's kind of my whole thing, I guess. So to think that the Mets' season is over because of the miserable way things went in four of their past six games, or to say that now -- now because of those losses -- Omar Minaya needs to swing a deal, is downright silly. Those are just losses. They were vicious, and to a Mets fan they sting, but they ultimately count as four tallies in the "L" column in a very long season.

The truth is, Minaya probably should be looking to make a move, but that should have been the case even if the Mets swept both their real and perceived rivals over the past week. The team's front office needs to do the best it can to honestly assess the statuses of Jose Reyes and Carlos Delgado, then, if it determines even one of those players will return to full strength, go out and try to find a starting pitcher. That's not an easy thing to do, but it's probably a whole lot easier than trying to make a pennant run with Livan Hernandez, Tim Redding and Fernando Nieve in the back of your rotation, Nieve's strong first start notwithstanding.

But since the Mets have done a decent job of treading water with half the team on the disabled list, there's no overwhelming rush. For now, the Mets and their fans must make like contestants on Wipeout when knocked ferociously off the course: regroup and get right back on. It's a long season. In baseball, as in Wipeout, everybody takes a shot to the groin now and then. What separates the winners from those left, well, wiped out, is the ability to recover quickly, learn lessons and move forward.

Just for fun: Try providing your own score to that Wipeout video. It's thrilling, I promise. Play a song -- I recommend something epic -- and the video above simultaneously. Hilarity ensues. The best I've found so far is "The Gash" by The Flaming Lips.

Also: If the Mets trade for Jeff Francoeur, I'm out. I'll find someone else to write this column.