"One Shot"

The later portion of Tuesday night's loss had a very Deer Hunter feel to it. Not the video game, but the movie where Christopher Walken offs himself while playing Russian Roulette.

There's one problem: Can it really be a game of Russian Roulette if the gun only has bullets for one contestant?

Because apparently, the Mets wasted their lone bullet in the second inning, when Carlos Delgado hit a ball to the moon for a 2-0 Mets lead. Who knew that would be it off of Adam Eaton?

If the Mets don't hit Adam Eaton tomorrow night, not only should they be ashamed of themselves, but the Phillies are going to be back in this race with a load of confidence tomorrow. -Me, unfortunately, last night

Guess what cheech, we have a race. (And the Mets should be ashamed of themselves.)

Can't say there weren't plenty of chances to stretch the lead a little bit. Paul Lo Duca grounding into a double play in the fourth inning. Delgado just missing on a deep fly to right field in the sixth, followed by Lo Duca stranding Carlos Beltran at third base. Delgado striking out in the eighth with runners on first and second.

After that, and after Jimmy Rollins hit a home run off of Pedro Feliciano while Tom Glavine was doing his in-game interview on SNY, it was just a matter of when and how...not if.

(And while I'm on the subject, these in-game interviews have to stop for the good of humanity. Yes, they're informative...yes, they're fun. And yes, the Mets seem to lose every single time one of these interviews happen...especially to Glavine. So around the start of the seventh inning, Kevin Burkhardt needs to be tied to a chair and gagged for his own good...only to be let free when the game is safely over. Irrational? Yes. But is it important...)

Of course, it's always the "how" part of the equation that's most fun. How does a Lo Duca throwing error, plus a thirty foot bunt hit that Lo Duca let roll foul except for the fact that it rolled the complete opposite way and stayed fair to cause the 2-2 tie grab ya? Somebody had better get Paulie some Dramamine so that he can get to sleep and not have the nightmares of Tuesday's game that he's going to have?

The Phillies came back in the ninth with their closer, Brett Myers. Who do the Mets counter with? Guillermo Mota. That, apparently, is how you play Russian Roulette where the chamber in the gun is empty when the Phillies are holding it, and when the Mets take hold of the gun, the chamber has five hollow point bullets ready to pierce a hole in your brain so wide that even Doug Sisk can throw through it for a strike. Amazingly, the empty bullet slot came up in the ninth inning for Mota. Predictably, that same slot did not come up in the tenth for him, as he gave up a bloop hit to Shane Victorino, then a bomb to Ryan Howard to bring the Phillies to within four games of the divison lead.

Why was Mota in for two innings...again? Probably because Pedro Martinez called up from Port St. Lucie over the weekend because he spotted a mechanical flaw in Mota. Of course when Pedro talks, people listen. And Mota's two "Post-Pedro" scoreless innings on Sunday against the Dodgers gave everybody in the organization this warm and fuzzy feeling inside.

But did you know that you also get a warm and fuzzy feeling from drinking anti-freeze before you convulse and die? Apparently, that's what you get from Mota in his first inning of work before the Mets convulse and die during his second inning. Pedro spotted a mechanical flaw? Hooray! Who's going to spot the rocks in Mota's head which would cause him to throw a cookie to Howard on a 1-2 count?

How ironic is it going to be when the man who called collect to try to fix a flaw in Guillermo Mota's mechanics is going to be the same man who will put Mota out of a job when he returns? At least Met fans hope it's going to be really ironic. Because the Guillermo Mota experiment, which really should have ended long ago, has to end tomorrow after Willie and Omar get a night's sleep to think this over.