Your Carlos Has Come

Nice of Carlos Beltran to join us this season.

Is it a coincidence that Beltran's latest hot streak, which has helped the Mets to a series victory over the Reds with an 8-3 victory on Sunday, and brought his RBI total from 13 to 21 over the last two days (with the help of his pink bat), has coincided with Keith Hernandez coming back from his sixteen week vacation to join the booth for a few games*?

Yes, it is a coincidence.

And that brings me to my latest rant:

Goose Gossage decided to weigh in on the Joba Chamberlain fist pump controversy. For those who don't know or care, Chamberlain acted like a lunatic after striking out David Dellucci, one night after giving up a game winning home run to Dellucci, who did not act like a lunatic. Gossage, when asked, volunteered the fine art of being a "True Yankee", and took a shot at the Mets in the process:

"That's just not the Yankee way, what Joba did. Let everyone else do that stuff, but not a Yankee," Gossage said by telephone on Saturday. "What I don't understand is, the kid's got the greatest mentor in the world in Mariano [Rivera]. He's one of the leaders of the team, so you'd think it wouldn't happen on that team.

"But there's no one to pass the torch anymore, no one to teach the young kids how to act. The Mets did a lot of that [celebrating] last year, and look how it came back to haunt them."

This, an quote gone unchallenged by the story's author (Bob Klapisch), is why our society is in a downhill spiral. Sure, let's not blame the facts that Jose Reyes was in a three month slump, the bullpen stunk, and Tom Glavine had the worst outing ever by a New York Met. No, none of that mattered ... because it was the dancing that did it. Dancing and celebrating came back to haunt us. Funny that the total arrogance of Reggie Jackson never came back to haunt the Yankees, huh? No, because Reggie was a "true Yankee". So how exactly did the dancing (dancing which has been done since the N.L. East Championship of 2006, mind you) come back to haunt the Mets?

You know Goose, if you wanted to take a shot at the Mets, and things that came back to haunt them last season, I'm surprised you didn't bring up that big fight in the shower after that weekday afternoon game last season.

Oh wait, that was you!

But I guess that can be chalked up to the Yankee way. (By the way, Cliff Johnson is in a urinal at the Dolly Madison rest stop waiting for his rematch.)

The above Heil-o-meter is for the whole weekend ... and he gets on the right side because his bad outing came in the blowout, and his good outing came in the game that was close. And in that game that was close, it was actually Filthy Sanchez that got booed for his bad outing during the second game of the DH. And it occurs to me that the completely uncalled for booing of Filthy wasn't really because Sanchez gave up all those runs in the eighth inning ... they were booing as if to say "Why couldn't you have been Aaron Heilman, so we could boo without feeling guilty about it?"

And I could swear I read something on the www (that of course I can't find now to save my life so please don't question my journalistic integrity on this one ... like I have any to begin with) that it was indeed Aaron Heilman who alerted Willie Randolph that David Ross was batting out of turn during the ninth inning. So good for Aaron Heilman. And before you blame Randolph for not waiting until Corey Patterson came up to bat to report the flaw and potentially take Patterson off base: Heck, I didn't know what rule 6.01 was either. Honestly, I thought that if you were caught batting out of turn, that the entire inning was over. So what the heck do I know?

*Oh, and nice of Keith Hernandez to join us this season.

You Can't Spell Fundamental Without "Mental"

Does the term "getting away with murder" mean anything to you?

After six innings of the "Orlando Hernandez Revival Tour", we were treated to the Mets version of the "Seventh Inning Kvetch", as three at-bats told a story that belied the actual outcome of the game.

First, it was David Wright failing to run out a foul ball that trickled back fair...as if I needed any reminder of Todd Zeile's similar grounder in the Subway Series of 2000. Then, it was Carlos Delgado failing to run hard on a ball off the oversized left field scoreboard, then proceeding to get thrown out at second base. Now Delgado should know, being the slowest man on the face of the earth (besides your friendly neighborhood blogger right here), that he needs to run hard every chance he gets...especially considering the slump he's been in.

Then, after Paul Lo Duca's fourth hit of the night, Shawn Green failing to...well, failing to keep himself upright as major league umpires are continuing to call every flinch of the bat as a strike, as Green was called out while falling on the ground. Now those are three at-bats that usually signal that I should just turn off the television, because no good can come of this game. I'm sure that Willie Randolph wanted to turn off the television as well except that he couldn't because he was there, and watching these guys perform feats of brilliance and stupidity just happens to be his job.

Fortunately for the Mets, the Marlins matched their late inning dreadfulness...for every Carlos Beltran lazy throw to the infield to help along Miguel Olivo to third base, there was a Dan Uggla error. For every Aaron Heilman meltdown to let the tying run score in the bottom of the eighth, there was Carlos Tosca playing the infield back with runners on first and third and nobody out with the score 1-1 in the top of the ninth. The Fish even threw in a bad throw home combined with a wild one hand stab at the ball with Miguel Olivo to bring home the go-ahead run, to put the Mets on track to a 6-2 victory which you can make the argument they really didn't deserve.

What could be the root of all of this craziness?

Of course, it's Petey! No wonder everybody lost their concentration, they were watching Pedro Martinez keep everyone entertained by dancing around and bugging his eyes out. Petey has that effect on people like a dark magical spell. In 2005, Pedro had such a hold on his bullpen that they blew 78 saves for him that season. Heck, I'm surprised the Mets didn't wander around the field muttering "must...kill...the queen..." and pull handguns from under second base.

Although there are two more games to this series so I guess anything can happen.