The Light In Your Eyes

Ryan Church looked up to admire his home run on Sunday.

While looking up, he saw lights.

After he saw lights, he was still able to touch every base while trotting around the bases, and run in a straight line.

I'd say those symptoms, like that Hiroki Kuroda pitch, are long gone.

Good health to you going forward, Mr. Church. Hopefully, the flight that you're probably on as I type this, doesn't mess you up like your previous two.

Also, some random thoughts to follow you to California:

Were you surprised that Johan Santana is only up to win number 100? I sure as hell was. (By the way, Santana is now 7-3, 3.20 after 12 starts. After 12 starts last season: 6-5, 3.30. Yeah, he's really not the same, right ... ESPN?)

Do you get the feeling that if there is a Mets vs. Dodgers playoff series that the pitching probables would look like this:

• Game One: J. Santana vs. H. Kuo


• Game Two: J. Maine vs. H. Kuo


• Game Three: P. Martinez vs. H. Kuo


• Game Four: O. Perez vs. H. Kuo

This must be the real reason Don Mattingly is no longer traveling with the club as a coach: because he's in some laboratory in Evansville trying to figure out a way to clone Hong-Chih Kuo nine times by October.

Forget Mike Piazza, if Jeff Kent (who was drilled again today by Joe Smith proving once again that Joe Smith is my hero) is such a shoo-in for the hall of fame as our broadcast crew seems to think, what cap does he wear? What do you think of him as? And is there a club that would be proud to have Jeff Kent immortalized in its cap? And is it wrong for me to associate him most strongly as being the whiny crybaby he was with the Mets? Can we put Jeff Kent in the Hall of Fame with a Met cap just to give me a good laugh every day when I wake up in the morning?

But seriously: If Jeff Kent gets into a Hall of Fame that is without Gil Hodges, I'd crawl into a grave just so I could spin.

All right, now that I've horrified you all, allow me to bring a little light back into your eyes:

Where Have You Gone, Chip Ambres?

This started out as one of those games where there was enough goofy stuff happening that it was going to be one of those Chip Ambres games where someone was going to be a late hero for one of those 9-8 contests.

Instead, the Mets never got to that point because they can't hit Hong-Chih Kuo. Let's review for a second: Hong-Chih Kuo, lifetime, was 3-11 with an ERA of close to 5 going in. Any guesses as to who two of those three career wins came against?

That's correct: your New York Mets.

Of course, it wouldn't have mattered if the Mets would have capitalized on some of their opportunities in the early innings ... like when they had a 3-0 lead and Ryan Church up with the bases loaded and nobody out in the second, and Church then hits into a double play and all bets are off. I think by the time Moises Alou stole home in the third on a double steal, the Mets had already stranded something like 35 runners in scoring position.

But Kuo coming in and looking like Carl Hubbell is just freakin' mind boggling. Mind boggling! And worse, it gave me the clarity to notice more things that I can complain about:

• Maybe all the Dodger nostalgia during the broadcasts are a coincidence. But in this world of heightened conspiracy alerts, it's a darn tootin' coincidence that all of these vignettes crop up considering that the president of the Brooklyn Dodgers secret society owns the team. I mean, the opening game of the series is one thing. But the nostalgia was in full force tonight too. The Giants are the only N.L. team with more hall of famers than the Dodgers. Any chance we'll get some Candlestick Park memories when the Mets go up north later in the year?
• I love Ron Darling. But stop with these damn Sovereign Bank commercials after every inning! The trees look like they're on fire and it's freaking me out!
• Is it me, or did David Wright look exhausted when there were two outs and nobody on when the camera cut to him in the dugout? Was it all those sparkling plays in the field he made (sandwiched between the throw he made that landed somewhere in El Segundo) that made him tired? Or was it hopelessness? And if it was hopelessness, how did the rest of the dugout look?
• I love Luis Castillo. Not like I love Ron Darling, but I'm a fan. And I'm pleased as punch he got his first hit in 85 at bats tonight. But a lollipop slider to end the game? Really, Luis? You know, protecting the plate is more than just for dinner, Luis.

But more than all of that, Hong-Chih Kuo just ticks me off. Three wins now out of four career coming against the Mets. More proof that this is how the season is going to go: Just good enough to keep us hopeful (two wins against Arizona), just bad enough to drive us nuts (Hong-Chih Kuo.)

It occurs to me that I've been going about this Aaron Heilman thing all wrong. Instead of complaining about him at every turn, I'm going to start my "Aaron Heilman Initiative". Meaning: When Heilman comes into a game, instead of watching the game and having complaints at the ready, I'm going to perform a good deed. So even when Heilman has a bad outing, some good will have come of it. For example, when Heilman entered the game tonight, I washed the dishes. So if Heilman had spit the bit, at least some good will have come of it. If everyone took part in the "Aaron Heilman Initiative", think of the good we can do as a society! One person does dishes. One person helps an old lady across the street. One person donates ten dollars to North Shore Animal League. We can actually turn society around instead of just sitting around complaining. And if Heilman has a good outing as he did tonight (two scoreless innings ... and in a close game no less), then everyone wins!

Sunk-o On Cinco

Art Howe would probably say that Oliver Perez battled.

Then again, Art Howe would probably say the same thing about the moth that met its demise at the hands of my bedroom light bulb.

It only matters what Billy Wagner thinks at this point. And I can't imagine that Wagner would have a disparaging word about Ollie's effort on Monday night. After all, he did go six innings and saved the bullpen from everything except two innings. Of course, the six innings Ollie threw weren't particularly good, but we're in the realm of lowered expectations at this point for Perez. Five runs in six innings? He didn't have his best stuff, as evidenced by the bombs he gave up to Rafael Furcal, Blake "Don't Call Me Joyce" DeWitt and Matt Kemp, but in this era of lowered expectations for Perez, eating innings seems to be quite enough.

Hey, at least he battled. More than you can say for the Mets lineup, which did their best to help celebrate the 4,000th game in the history of Dodger Stadium by coming up with a single run (and don't worry ... if you didn't know you were watching a game at Dodger Stadium, SNY took every opportunity to mark the occasion with nice little vignettes scattered about the broadcast to help remind you). The same place that brought you Willie Davis, Orel Hershiser, and Hong-Chih Kuo, now brings you Chad Billingsley's second victory of the season, in which he ironically had 4 K's in Dodger Stadium Game 4K.

(Speaking of which, Dodger Stadium is supposedly undergoing a multi-million dollar renovation. For some reason, that includes trees and a big plastic deer in the bullpen. Because as you know, nothing says "Los Angeles" like the woods. Seriously, who gets paid to think of these things?)

That's A Mighty Big Neck To Step On

Willie Randolph: "What have I constantly told you guys about stepping on a team's necks?"

David Wright: "We tried skip. But the first neck I tried to step on was David Wells' neck, and it's so big I think I sprained my ankle."

But really...when the following happened, the Mets kinda deserved to lose.

Good news on Jeff Kent's condition after being beaned in the head: He's fine. He just thinks it's 1992, and refuses to wear a clown suit. Dodger officials don't understand what that means.

Interesting time to get revenge for Hong-Chih Kuo's bat flip, eh? (Or maybe it was revenge for Kent's Met career. Now that we know that nothing's broken, I can safely say the following: Screw you, Jeff.)

Midwestern Rules of Displacement

So I was having a conversation the other day with an Ohio State student. I asked her how upset they were about losing to Florida in two separate championships, in two separate sports. I paraphrase the answer:

"When we lost in football, we were too shocked to be really angry...because we were supposed to win that game. So there really wasn't a lot of anger on campus.

Then, when we lost in basketball, as we were supposed to as the underdog, we really couldn't get too upset about that, so we got really mad at the football team. And all the anger started coming out."

Displaced anger. What a concept.

And that's why I can't get upset over Sunday night's brutal loss to the Yankees, making the 2007 Subway Extravaganza a complete wash. Because I really didn't expect much from this matchup between Orlando Hernandez and Chien-Ming Wang. I figured that if the Mets went down meekly against sinkerballer Brandon Webb, their luck probably wouldn't be much better against sinkerballer Wang. Hernandez would have had to have been lights out to merely get the Mets to extra innings, and to the tenuous Yankee bullpen, to have the best chance of taking this rubber game.

Not to be.

That's why Saturday's game still sticks with me. All of a sudden, I'm throwing pizza boxes again, just as I did on Saturday, but without the shock and mindlessness of it. This time, the anger was more calculated, if not timely.

That's why the Los Angeles series still sticks with me. Swept by a team that fired their hitting coach for their lack of offense, except for their sweep against the Mets...of course.

That's why the Philadelphia series still sticks with me. Even one win would have put the Mets in a significantly better position than they are now. That one win should have been the middle game...the Aaron Heilman 0-2 home run to Jimmy Rollins and Endy Chavez exploding hamstring game.

With every loss from here on in that holds the Mets back in the standings, I'll keep being angry about those games. I'll keep throwing pizza boxes.

This upcoming homestand doesn't give the Mets a breather, as the Twins and Athletics come to town. The Mets have a chance to take care of two bugaboos that they have: Win at home, and win against tough American League competition. The Mets have an interleague record of 4-5...considering that consists of a split against the Yankees, and one win in three tries against the Tigers in Detroit, that's actually not so bad. But the Mets need to turn it around this week. They need to turn it around at Shea, where they are only 17-16, and they need to turn it around against pitchers like Carlos Silva on Monday (4-7, 4.07), Scott Baker on Wednesday (1-2, 7.33), and Lenny DiNardo on Friday (2-3, 2.21, five runs in 3 and 2/3 on Saturday).

If they wait until the 25th when the putrid defending champion comes to town, then how good will it really feel? And will they be in first place by the time that day comes? And how many pizza boxes will I have thrown by then thinking about Heilman's gopher ball, Glavine giving up thousands of runs, Hong-Chih Kuo, and Carlos Beltran swinging at the first pitch?

Don't Worry, Lightning Never Strikes Twice...Er, Three, Er...Aah, Forget It!

Three pitches...

Three homers...

One stunned blogger.

I'm lost. I can't even fathom this right now. Three home runs on three straight John Maine pitches to the 7-8-9 hitters in the order?

On a team that came into the game second to last in all of baseball in home runs?

And the pitcher flips his bat after the third home run without eating the batters box in his next at-bat? Oh, and let me reiterate that the last time this guy hit a home run was high school.

High school?

The same pitcher that now has two career wins, and both against the Mets?

Dae Sung Kuo against the rest of the league, Hong Chih Kuofax against the Mets. Phenomenal.

It's gotten so bad that Hilary Swank doesn't want to be seen in her Mets hat anymore, as she was during Monday's game. Perhaps she used it to wipe Alyssa Milano's blood off the floor after a particularly heated Mets/Dodgers argument. Now that would be a more anticipated matchup than Jorge Sosa vs. Brad Penny.

But here's the good news, the Mets are on the cover of Sports Illustrated this week. At this point, what's left to jinx?