The Tin Foil On My Cat Keeps The Aliens Away

It was bad enough when Pat Gillick gave Bobby Abreu to the Yankees for nothing.

It was bad enough when a former Brave sabotaged the Mets playoff hopes on the last day of the season, then coincidentally expresses his desire to take less money to return to the Braves.

But now the dots are beginning to connect. Ed Wade, a former Phillies GM, in one of his first acts as current GM of the Astros, trades Brad Lidge and Eric Bruntlett to the Phillies, his former team, for Michael Bourn, Geoff Geary, and Mike Costanzo.

What, Ed Wade couldn't get Greg Luzinski's BBQ recipe and a pair of Bake McBride's old stirrups in return?

Here's what getting Brad Lidge does for the Phillies: First off, it enables the Phillies to send Brett Myers back to the rotation, strengthening that position for them. Getting Brad Lidge also, well...it gets Brad Lidge for the bullpen. Lidge, last check, still throws 95 mph+.

But here's the worst part, boys and girls: Michael Bourn going the other way in the trade means that the Phillies now have an outfield position open for...Aaron Rowand to come back. Just when we thought there was no way that there would be room for the Phillies to keep a guy who's nothing but heart, soul, guts, and a .300 average, Ed Wade makes room for them by making this ridiculous trade. Now the Phillies get Aaron Rowand back, Brett Myers makes the rotation better, and they get Brad Lidge!!!

Meanwhile, in Flushing, the Mets are re-signing old players and chasing windmills in Alex Rodriguez and Jorge Posada. And you want to tell me there's no conspiracy? Screw that, I'll be off covering my cat in tin foil. Don Quixote...away!

Seventh Hell

A little clarity, a little more time to think, and a little bit of alcohol got me thinking about Tuesday night's game. And the one recurring theme in my mind was this: With Geoff Geary on the mound in a tie game, and the heart of your order at the plate, you have to win. You have to find a way to scratch one run home. It's inexcusable for the Mets not to have done that.

So Wednesday night, here we are again. Geoff Geary on the mound, and this time the Mets are down by a run with runners on second and third and nobody out. I stress one more time: You have to beat Geoff Geary.

If this was 2006, Geary is beaten down like a minor leaguer. Earlier this season, Geary was beaten down like a minor leaguer. Now? Well not only do the Mets go down meekly in the home half of the seventh inning, they go down spectacularly...in flames even. They go down with seemingly their last outfielder standing healthy getting shot by a sniper...the hamstring sniper...while beating out a double play to bring home the tying run (which really should have scored with nobody out and Ryan Howard sprawling to smother the Julio Franco grounder with Ruben Gotay already halfway home, but that's another issue altogether).

They say that Endy Chavez's hamstring is "strained". I'd hate to see what an actual tear would have looked like. Would he have been taken off on a wheelchair like Dwyane Wade? And with that, the curse of the Shea outfield continues, with Shawn Green still hurt and Moises Alou taking his sweet time getting back to the lineup (even though at his age, time should be a terrible thing to waste). Don't be surprised if Alou makes a slightly sooner than expected return to the lineup tomorrow (calls to Eric Valent, Gerald Williams, and Brian McRae were not immediately returned).

Of course, the bottom of the seventh is moot without the top of the seventh, and the latest meltdown by Aaron Heilman (which I suspect was a jinx job by Keith Hernandez...first he goes on and on about what a great job Pedro Feliciano had done this season before he gave up the home run to Chase Utley, and tonight he waxes poetic on how much better Aaron Heilman has been lately before he goes ka-boom with a three run explosion in the top of the inning...thanks a lot Keith).

If this game had happened in September, it would have been devastating. Terry Pendelton like, even. That game had Ron Darling's injury (the same Ron Darling who was in Shea Stadium's version of the penalty box announcing the game tonight...was that his Anaheim Duck homage?), this had Endy's injury. That game had Pendleton's blast, this game had Jimmy Rollins' three run HR off Heilman. The only thing that game had that this one didn't, thankfully, was the month of September. But think of the life that the Mets just gave the Phillies tonight...you thought Jimmy Rollins was confident coming into the season? His confidence is sky high right now...do we really want that? And now, if we didn't have enough Cole Hamels Facts, here's another one: The Mets have to beat him on Thursday just to save themselves from a sweep. They can't hit Geoff Geary or Adam Eaton right now (Adam Eaton, for crying out loud...Adam Eaton!!!) We're really expecting them to beat Cole Hamels?

The Mets have deserved the benefit of the doubt all season. And as horiffic as Wednesday's game was, they're still 3 and a half ahead of Atlanta. But the pulse of the team can't be good after their first three game losing streak of the season. And at some point a good team like this has to sit back and ask themselves what they need to do to right the ship. With the schedule in June as brutal as it is (starting with Detroit on Friday and on from there), games like Wednesday's needed to be won.

Not Worth The Paper It's Printed On

I'm guessing we can all agree that the Washington Nationals are the worst team on paper, correct?

And according to Jimmy Rollins, the Philadelphia Phillies are the best team on paper. Right?

Well, I've picked up the paper. Guess what it says:

Nationals 1-6
Phillies 1-6

The Nationals win the tie-breaker and thus are listed on the higher line....Because as we know, the first division tie-breaker is not head to head record, but less errors by players who make silly predictions. Jimmy Rollins' error brought home the tying run for the Mets today in their home opener, and opened the floodgates for the Phillies bullpen to give up six thousand more runs as the Mets won by a score of 6,005-5.

All right it was only six runs in an 11-5 victory. For the Phillies, it only seemed like 6,000 runs. For the Mets, it didn't seem like enough.

Here's my startling admission of the night: I never hope for sweeps. Sweeps, to me, are a lot to hope for. I've got one of those friends who wants to go 162-0 every season. Tells me on the phone: "You know, if we can win 19 of the next 20..." as if that kind of thing happened all the time in baseball. I'm always the one reigning him in, trying to keep his expectations somewhat reasonable so that he doesn't give himself a coronary episode if heaven forbid the Mets only win 6 out of 10.

That being said, I've gotta tell you: I want two more from these guys. I want this team demoralized immediately. I want the entire city of Philadelphia getting out of their houses at 2AM wandering around Logan Square wondering what the hell happened to their team. I want people at Pat Gillick's door with bats and billy clubs waiting for answers. I want Pat's and Geno's to be so disgusted with the Phillies that they pack up and move to New York. I want the Phanatic to wear blue and orange. I the city of Philadelphia to know that the defending division champs are not to be trifled with via cheap motivational speeches.

Yes, I'm hoping for a sweep.

A word about The Amburglar, if you will. You may disagree with me...no, check that: you will disagree with me. But I don't mind the decision to pitch to Ryan Howard in the sixth. Yes, there was a base open, but if you intentionally walk the struggling Howard, you bring up a Met killer with the bases loaded (a Met killer currently hitting .385, it should be noted). Damned if you do and damned if you don't...but Howard hadn't hit anything all season. And up until two strikes on Howard, Burgos proved that you can make him look silly.

But once Howard fouled off the first pitch after the second strike, I started to get a little nervous because Howard was starting to battle, and starting to time Burgos. Amburglar went to the well once too often, and there's no way that an off-speed pitch should have been anywhere near the strike zone...it was like he caught the Mota disease as he kept going to the junk instead of going upstairs with the heat, or throwing the splitter down by his ankles. Except that wasn't Scott Spiezio with his warning track power, that was Ryan Howard with his "I'm in a slump and if I get a pitch to hit it's going to the flippin' moon" power. So instead, we got what Keith Hernandez called "a helicopter slider" or some similar nonsense.

I was upset after the Burgos Bomb, and knew that it would be talked about for a while. But once the SNY crew was discussing the Gary Carter HR from Opening Day '85 I thought "you know what, it's the home opener. Deliciously evil things happen during home openers at Shea (unless it's 2003 and you're down 27-3)"...and I cheered up. And once Matt Smith took over for Wonderboy Cole Hamels, I cheered up some more.

And when Geoff Geary came in for Smith, the smile on my face grew wider than Sidney Ponson's pants size...because we all know the deeper you get into Philadelphia's bullpen, the better the odds that Charlie Manuel's face will turn beet red like his uniform (or those things the Braves wear on Sundays). It was fun to watch Geary walk a 78-year-old man, no? It was fun to watch Jimmy Rollins boot a Jose Reyes grounder to tie the game. And it was lotsa fun watching David Wright blast one off the top of the wall to put the game away in a grand eighth inning which bore seven runs of fruit for us.

And it will be just as much fun to pick up the paper tomorrow and see the best team on that paper in last place.