Back To Work

Woke up Sunday morning. Got myself a cramp.

No, seriously...the morning after the most glorious Saturday that the Mets have known for a while...and maybe the most glorious Saturday that most Met fans have known...ever...I wake up in screaming, blood curdling pain.

But in the middle of the worst cramp I've had...I smiled. Why?

The cramp was in my calf.

All this pain, and I'm happy that my injury resembles the injuries of my favorite baseball team. I guess that's how you know that fandom has gone a wee bit too far...when you start sharing their injuries without actually playing, and you're happy about it.

So even with a bum calf, Sunday was spent basking. I guess all this basking took a little bit longer than I thought, since Monday was also spent basking on my end too. The Mets, meanwhile, got right back to business on Monday. You see players, as far as I know, are really good at putting celebrations behind them and focusing on the task at hand...unlike me. I've gotta admit that I bought myself a time share on cloud nine.

I needed Monday to bask too, since part of basking is seeing people you haven't seen since Friday. Most would expect that I would have really let a certain Yankee fan have it, but the best part about having a blog and being part of the blogging community, is that somebody will ultimately have your back.

"I don't know why I'm even on this track
Y'all...ain't even on my level
I'm going to let my little homies
Ride on yah" -Tupac Shakur, from "Hit 'em Up"

What impresses me is the patience that Toasty showed...keeping the Darth quotes in the back of his head and waiting for the right point to spring them back. Combine that with the visual aid he used and you have a technically sound blog post with a high level of difficulty. A 9.95.

Good thing I'm not a player...I'd be a prime candidate for a game one letdown. Hopefully, the guys that earn the big time paychecks are slightly more focused than I am. But then again, how could they not be...with the Cliff Floyd achilles situation hanging like a slow moving storm.

(You'll have to forgive me if I get slightly sentimental over one Cliff Floyd. Sure, it's not a dire situation to have Endy Chavez in the game instead of Floyd if need be. But if there was a player on this team that I would want to have the quintessential meaningful hit to put the Mets in the World Series, it would be Floyd.)

But everything else going seems to be humming along en route to game one. Tom Glavine hasn't heard anything pop in the last 24 hours, Jose Lima is nowhere near Shea Stadium, and Paul Lo Duca is picking fights with reporters:

Q. There's such a sense now that the American League is better than the National League, you're aware of that, I'm sure.
PAUL LO DUCA: I didn't know that. Go ahead. (Laughter.)
Q. This is sort of like the second place championship.
PAUL LO DUCA: Where did you hear that from? Your own assessment?
Q. No, it's not my own assessment.
PAUL LO DUCA: Where did you hear it from then?
Q. I follow baseball.
PAUL LO DUCA: Who is all of baseball?
Q. I said I follow baseball.
PAUL LO DUCA: You follow baseball, so you're saying the American League is better than the National League?
Q. I cover a National League team, I don't know.
PAUL LO DUCA: So you're saying the American League is better than the National League.
Q. I'm not saying the American League is better than the National League.
PAUL LO DUCA: Is he saying the American League is better than the National League? They obviously were, they were better overall in the interleague if you want to go there, but it's all washed out so we need to go play. We're not concerned with what happens on the American League side. We're concerned with what happens here.

Isn't Lo Duca like a latter day Ray Schalk...or at least what they portrayed Schalk to be in Eight Men Out? I picture Lo Duca talking to reporters in the hallway while passing around a medicine ball...while smacking around divorce lawyers with his spare hand.

When it comes to the Cardinals, two people scare me.

You can guess one of them fairly easily.

With the lack of support that Albert Pujols has surrounding him in the lineup (made more obvious by the hurt that Scott Rolen is feeling right now), there's no reason to throw anything to him that's in his area code, let alone the strike zone.

First base open? Ball four.

Second base open? Ball four.

Bases empty and nobody out? Ball four.

7-6 Mets in the top of the ninth with the bases loaded, two men out and the bottom of the order due up for the Mets in the bottom of the ninth?

Ball four. Hey, 7-7 is better than 10-7, right? Trust the lineup.

The other guy that scares me might scare...well, just me.

But has anyone noticed during the Cardinals' victory over the Padres how tough Tyler Johnson was out of the pen. The lefty had a big break in his curveball that carried him to 2 and two thirds of shutout baseball with six strikeouts against San Diego...while pitching in all four games.

Y'all saw how the Dodgers were affected by the loss of Joe Beimel to an unfortunate injury suffered in his "hotel room". I'm sure you also have noticed the Mets recent struggles against lefthanded pitching. If the games are close, Johnson could be a sneakily large factor against New York. Perhaps there's an evite we could send to the young lefthander?



Notice that I left one Chris Carpenter off the list. Chris Carpenter doesn't scare me because unfortunately for St. Louis, Carpenter isn't going to be in a position to scare anyone...he will only pitch in two of the games (unless he summons the spirit of Orel Hershiser and tries to close out a game or two, which begs the question: "How does Orel Hershiser analyze a game if he has no spirit?) and the Cards will have to take this to seven games to see him the second time. Pujols and Johnson, to me, are higher on the list.

And that bodes well for the Mets, especially getting to see Jeff Weaver tomorrow for game one. Only the newly minted "Kenny Rogers Factor" plants a little bit of doubt in my mind that Weaver is going to get hit hard Wednesday night. Once that happens, Chris Carpenter isn't going to be there to pick up the slack and get that all-important split at Shea. So if you're a Met fan do you know what you're rooting for? You're rooting for no rainout on Thursday. Only a rainout on Thursday can push Carpenter up to game 2 and you don't want that. I don't want that. Nobody wants that.

The only rain the Mets want is another champagne shower that will send them to the World Series.