Stranded No More

I loved Gilligan's Island as a child. Syndication of this show got me through a lot of early mornings getting ready for school. As I look back on the show, I realize a couple of things:

1. Tina Louise was hot. And ...
2. If Aaron Heilman had inherited these stranded castaways back in 1964, there would have never been a show. Because the castaways would have gone home immediately like every runner on base when Heilman comes into the game.

Because of the archaic rules of baseball, recent call-up Claudio Vargas was tagged with the loss tonight after 6 and 1/3 innings of three hit baseball. We know better, as Heilman gave up the same amount of hits while only getting one batter out. And now this clinches a homestand of at least three losses in seven tries, meaning that the good work done during the 3-3 road trip against Arizona and Los Angeles is pretty much negated ... meaning that more people will want Willie Randolph fired. I know who I want fired:

Let's review: Aaron Heilman had gotten the second out in the seventh, and had Jesus Flores on an 0-2 count. Then he fooled around and fooled around and fooled around and Flores worked the count full and I thought, "at least Heilman will do the smart thing and walk him rather than give up the base hit to get the run home." I should have known that Flores would line the 3-2 pitch to left field to give the Nationals the lead. It didn't matter, as everybody would have come home anyway. P.S. For those of you who thought that Lost would have been a better reference than Gilligan's Island, I've never seen Lost. Gilligan's Island, I've seen. And I stand by my assertion that Tina Louise was hot. But from now on, I'll do my best to stay consistent with the generation I'm living in. But thank goodness that Aaron Heilman wasn't alive in 1964.

Accentuate The Positive

I'm not going to be a complete curmudgeon (SAT word) and complain about certain things that I could complain about.

"A win is a win is a win" is what an old dear friend of mine used to say (of course, he used to say that about the Knicks so you know those wins are at a premium), and I'm going to take that tact here. The Mets have won their series against the Phillies, and they're back to .500 on the season. That should be enough to satisfy my palate.

I will not be focusing on the fact that the victory should have been in eight and a half innings and not flippin' twelve. I'm not going to focus on the fact that Carlos Beltran would have an excellent mindset at the plate if he indeed had a mind. I'm not going to sweat the fact that after Jose Reyes and David Wright executed a double steal in the eighth, and J.C. Romero had a 2-2 count on Beltran with first base open, a hitter that Romero has dominated on deck (Carlos Delgado), and every reason to pitch around him, Beltran went hacking at a pitch designed to be impossible to hit and unlikely to tick the strike zone and strike out.

I'm not even going to fret that these two Met victories over Philadelphia came with Jimmy Rollins on the bench (save for a strikeout against Billy Wagner in the ninth on Thursday) because Joe Morgan gave him medical advice.

And I'm in such a good mood, I'm not even going to mention how Aaron Heilman sucks koala bear testicles.

Instead, I will revel in the outing provided to us by John Maine (one run in six plus strong innings.)

I will pump my fist and wipe my brow over the jam that Scott Schoeneweis got the Mets out of in the eleventh getting Chase Utley to ground into a big double play.

And I will do a Reyes/Delgado hand slap over the fact that the clock hasn't struck midnight for Angel Pagan, and that he still gets hits ... including the big walk-off hit in the twelfth in back of Reyes' second extra base hit of the year.

(All that, and Claudio Vargas too? What did I do to deserve this?)

But then my heart will sink because it took me from February until ten minutes ago that the Mets have an Angel, and a Church on the team. How did I not see this and make a stupid joke about that up until now? I have to be a better writer than that. But otherwise, it's positive, positive, positive.

A win ... is a win ... is a win.