Pushing Henn Off A "Cliff"

Cliff Floyd gave me Darryl Strawberry flashbacks today.

There are home runs, then there are home runs. Then there are Floyd's bombs off helpless rookie Sean Henn from Saturday's 10-3 victory over the Yanks. I saw one of them roll down my street.

What was going to prevail? The Mets horrible record against rookies? Or their excellent batting average against lefties? The latter, thanks to Cornelius and his twin bombs. And now the Mets have a chance to sweep the suddenly hapless Yankees, and in "the house that Ruth built" no less. The Mets have never even won a series in Steinbrenner's Synagogue, much less sweep.

But while it's enough to make a Met fan giddy (as well it should), keep in mind that through all of this, nobody else in the N.L. East outside of Philly is losing either. So no matter what happens Sunday night, sweep or not, there's still plenty of work to do.

Other matters:

David Wright's new haircut: Samson, Shmanson. Whatever works, right? I understand that Wright searched far and wide to get just the right person to cut his hair, and he found him. Hey, how is Rey Sanchez doing anyway?

Erosion of a cornerstone: I don't remember anybody having a tougher series in the field than Bernie Williams. First he drops a fly ball, then he gets embarassed by Mike Cameron's heads up play tagging from first and catching Bernie asleep. Then he let's Ramon Castro's base hit get by him. And finally, the frustration sets in as Bernie goes medieval on a water cooler. The good news for Williams is that he's being compared to one of the greatest center fielders of all time. The bad news is, he's being compared to the 1973 version of Willie Mays.

Close plays at first: In another razor close play at first base in this series, Derek Jeter was probably safe in the second inning, as it looked like a tie at the bag. But you know what, Reyes gets the call for making a spectacular play to end that inning. Enough of those have gone against the Mets in past seasons against the Yankees so excuse me while I don't cry in my beer. And Roy White needs to switch to decaf. He's no Lee Mazzilli.

Minky, Hammy. Hammy, Minky: See Doug. See Doug tweak hamstring against the Yankees. See Doug tell us there's "no chance" he'll play Sunday night against Randy Johnson. See Doug's heart break. See Brian Daubach go 2 for 3 with a sac fly RBI.

Tom Glavine plays Houdini on Saturday: All those threats that he escaped today made me wonder...how well would he be able to escape a Met fan's hands around his neck for giving us all heart attacks on an inning by inning basis?

Aaron Heilman brought in to mop up: Not this again! At least it was only one inning so he could go on Sunday.