David Einhorn played much better defense in May than the team he is about to buy into.

The Greenlight Capital hedge fund manager — who is on the verge of becoming a major investor in the sloppy New York Mets — was up 0.3 percent in May. This was better than the S&P 500, which lost 1.13 percent for the month.

So far this year, however, Einhorn continues to lose money. He is down 2.4 percent, lagging the S&P 500 which was up 7.8 percent through May 31. The Dow Industrials were up 8.60 percent through May.

The investment returns were reported by Greenlight Re, the insurance company controlled by Einhorn. It points out that investment returns are based on the total assets in its investment account, which are managed by DME Advisors, LP and include the majority of its equity capital and collected premiums.

Another firm that already has reported May results is Och-Ziff, which is publicly-traded.

The conservative, plodding firm’s OZ Master Fund was flat in May and is up 4.12 percent for the year while its Europe Master Fund was up slightly last month and is up 4.21 percent for the year.

These are the first two firms to report their May results.

However, a number of other hedge funds have been lagging the major benchmarks for much of the year. 

Brevan Howard’s BH Macro was up less than 1 percent in May and 3.24 percent for the year through May 27.

Winton Capital’s main fund lost nearly 4 percent through May 25, putting it barely in the black.

On the other hand, through May 24, Bruce Kovner’s Caxton Global Investment was down 2.43 percent for the month and down 3.07 percent for the year.