He's On A Mission From God

Heath Bell wants you to sell him your women.

And why shouldn't you? After all, he's made New York his personal playground with two saves out of three games here ... and if the Padres didn't play so sloppily it very well could have been three for three after tonight's 6-5 loss.

On the one hand, those who think that Heath Bell should pipe down with all his anti-Met propaganda have a valid point. After all, Bell hardly set the world on fire when he was with the Mets, and he should be thanking them for trading him to the Padres and affording him the chance to be the new Trevor Hoffman, instead of worrying about the social habits of his former team. If you look at the obsession meter, Heath Bell lies somewhere in between Lisa Sheridan and a Philadelphia Phillie.

On the other hand, if Gary Cohen's account from today's game is true (and why wouldn't it be), and that Bell was closing in the minors while being a long man while up on the New York part of the shuttle, then he does have a point. It does nobody any good to keep switching roles upon entering and exiting the majors. It reeks of no organizational plan. But again, that's our problem (apparently), and Bell should be happy to be gone. I'd be too if I had five saves the first week of the season after going nowhere with the Mets. But dude, enough. You know? Enough. Enough of your saves, and enough of your chatter. Go save the world somewhere else while Braden Looper comes to town this weekend and points out more of the Mets' organizational flaws.

Honestly, it breaks my heart to see a boy that young goin' bad.

And speaking of piping down:

"This is the most gratifying win I think I’ve ever been a part of as a Padre, watching the total team effort that we gave tonight result in a win." -Jake Peavy

Somebody show Jake a calendar and tell him it's April!!! Really? Most gratifying win? A victory in the first week of the season for a team that's one ten-game losing streak away from trading you to Milwaukee for Seth McClung and a case of Schlitz? Does anyone have perspective anymore?

Oh, and Mike Pelfrey might miss a start. If he does, expect the Mets to call up Chan Jose Lawrence.

Beginnings of What, Exactly?

They played the wrong Chicago song.

When Tom Seaver and Mike Piazza reprised their first pitch from Shea Stadium's last pitch tonight at the brand new Citi Field, "Beginnings" was blaring over the sound system. In the reality we know as Mets baseball, "Old Days" would have been a better choice for this 6-5 historical blemish. Too many eerie reminders of the old days.

First off ... a cat? Come on. Waaaaaaaaaaay too convenient. Waaaaaaaaaaay too coincidental. You tell me that that by chance there was a cat roaming the field to open up the new stadium on Opening Night when one of the signature moments of Shea Stadium involved a cat? Yeah, I'm sure some cats made the trip ... but Opening Night? Please. If there weren't so many flight restrictions in New York there would have been a parachutist in the second inning. Somebody set that up.

Then, let's return to older days like ... last season, as in Jody Gerut becoming the first player ever ... ever ... to open a new stadium with a home run, a stadium that's supposed to be impossible to hit a home run in, or at least Gerut-proof just as Shea was supposedly "Gerut-proof" last season. Somehow, that wasn't a coincidence either.

Or, let's go back in time to ... yesterday, as in another outfielder having a ball go right off his glove and helping to bring in the winning run which, if it wasn't balked home, it would have been driven home by David Eckstein. You remember Eckstein from 2006 when he was being a general pain in the ass during the NLCS, never to be seen or heard from again until the next momentous moment in Mets history, the opening of a new park. Of course Eckstein would be around to screw that up by driving in two runs with three hits. What, the Padres couldn't trade for Yadier Molina and Jeff Suppan?

No, they decided instead to get two former Mets to close out this game for the Padres. Filthy Sanchez and Heath Bell. Six up, six down. First game ever at Citi Field, and it's closed out by Sanchez and Bell ... from the old days. Heath not only was dreaming about this moment, but he got it to come to fruition with a 1-2-3 ninth. Awesome. Just awesome.

And I'll state the obvious: if this is what we are to expect from Mike Pelfrey over the coming weeks, then Citi Field is going to turn into the House of Angst for a New Millennium. Oliver Perez goes on Wednesday for the Mets. Maybe the appropriate Chicago song will reflect the final score ... as in 25 or 6 to 4. And we'll have endings before the beginnings actually begin.

Count On David

Fitting that Sesame Street's own Ernie was at Shea today to help teach the many kids in attendance to "Count On Sports". And all those kids that were out there today learned from Jody Gerut that you can always count on sports to give you a tummy ache ... especially when Gerut waits for the Mets series to decide that there's some lineage to Mel Ott in his family.

So remember for all you kids out there (as Keith would say), sometimes ... bullpens suck. You don't have to tell Johan Santana that as he walked off the mound after being pulled from the game in the 8th after a couple of seeing-eye hits ... and his strut wasn't so much a strut but a hunched over shuffle to the dugout as if to say "oh great, another no-decision" as he left with a 3-1 lead. Sure enough, a spectacular double play by Reyes squared and Nick Evans (along with a bonehead slide by Scott Hairston as Glenn Hoffman was waving him around) could only delay the inevitable as Scott Schoeneweis gave up Jody Gerut's latest bomb to snatch yet another W from the ledger of Johan. I think that everyone kind of expected it, as it was a ninth inning that didn't quite feel like a ninth inning as the crowd had a vibe of impending doom. Alas they were right.

But thankfully, sometimes you can count on sports. And you can count on David Wright ... because he's handsome and he's going to save the day as he did Thursday with a walk off jobby off of Heath Bell. The Mets win, yet the kids learn valuable lessons about adversity, being a good teammate, and not being required to like everybody in your bullpen. Everybody wins.

Yes Virginia, you can count on sports.

But on a related note: perhaps putting the clip of Ernie asking Bert to "count the balls" on Diamond Vision isn't the best way to squash the misconception about Bert and Ernie's sexual orientation. Then again, maybe playing the part of the Gwen Stefani song that mentions a "stupid ho" over the sound system isn't the best choice on kids camp day either. Perhaps the following brilliant, fun filled yet potty mouthed ditty could have been played in homage of Bert and Ernie instead.

(Disclaimer: NOT for all you kids out there)



(And speaking of Diamond Vision ... for what was perhaps the defensive play of the year from Reyes squared to Evans, we in the ballpark could have really used a replay of that. The Monkees sing-a-long can wait ten seconds. Just sayin'.)

They're Coming To Take Me Away, Ha Haaa!

It's becoming evident that Willie Randolph has gone completely insane.

It's not his fault. But circumstances are driving him to the asylum.

Of course, it doesn't help that Sandy Alomar Sr. had the kind of flashback that makes slow catchers look eerily similar to Lou Brock during Game 1 of the double dip against the Rangers. But here's Willie Randolph on Alomar's decision to send Brian Schneider home on a short fly ball to Milton Bradley in the eighth which basically blew any Mets chance at a comeback:

"In retrospect, he was thrown out by a lot (at home), so it probably wasn't a definite good send," said Randolph, who served as the Yankees' third base coach for 10 years. "But it's lonely over there at third base, and you make a decision. The throw was good, but it didn't put a damper on that inning right there."

It's lonely?

Wait a second, shouldn't that mean that instead of having lots of friends around to talk to, that Sandy Alomar Sr. would have extra time to, oh I don't know, think about why sending a catcher home on a short fly ball would be a bad idea? Lonely??? Alomar made a bad read because he was lonely? Sandy Alomar Sr. needs to go on eHarmony.com?

"Go Schneider! Run like the wind! I want to be lonely again!!! Booooooooooorn Freeeeeeeeee! As free as the wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiind bloooooooooooooows!"

Koo-koo! Koo-koo! Koo-koo!

(Or is that ... Dae Sung Koo-Koo?)

Then, after Robinson Cancel saved Randolph's bacon by getting a pinch-hit two run single in the sixth giving the Mets the lead for good in game 2 while everyone in the stands were chanting for Pedro Martinez to stay in the game (and saved the Mets from the awful stat that the team is 0-9 when being tied after six innings), Randolph says this:

"Because of the rainout, yeah it almost felt like we went one for three really ... but the record shows otherwise so we'll take it."

Willie Randolph has become one of those chain smokers that can't enjoy food anymore because he's smoked so much that everything tastes like tar and menthol. Even a series win feels like a series loss to Randolph. That's not supposed to happen to a manager until he's been around 25 years. Willie hasn't even managed four.

That ... my friends ... is what working for this organization will get you. Fewer brain cells. So yes, fire Willie. Fire Willie Randolph so he can regain his sanity and get a cushy job as Joe Torre's bench coach. Save him from a fate of sneaking on team flights in disguises so he can't be fired.

Fire Rick Peterson so he can become Barry Zito's love guru. (Or maybe he'll go to San Diego and straighten out Heath Bell's fastball again).

Fire Tom Nieto so he can go to another organization and a whole other fan base can forget that he works for them until it's time to fire seven coaches.

Fire them all. Except Jerry Manuel, that is. Yes, by all means promote Jerry Manuel ... who outside of one division title in 2000 is a .500 manager ... a perfect match for a .500 roster. He'll fire up the troops just fine.

Yes, give us Jerry. Arm him with more of the weapons of Omar Minaya's past ... such as Tony Armas Jr. And bring back the rest of the Expo luminaries: Shane Andrews. Fernando Seguignol. Orlando Merced. Wilton Guerrero. Trace Coquillette. And what's Mel Rojas doing these days, anyway?

Bring 'em back. That'll do the trick.

Ah, f**k. Guess I've gone crazy too. And I haven't even flown back and forth from the west coast every other week. Think how Willie feels.

Most be lonely on those flights.

Ker-Plunk

Think of it this way: Scott Schoeneweis did everyone a favor.

When you're staring down the barrel of a 1-1 game with the San Diego Padres in the ninth, you know that dealing with this team that can't score that if you go to the tenth inning, you're most likely going to the 18th ... or the 22nd. And you can't re-introduce Abraham Nunez to the major leagues with a 30-inning ballgame after he spent the last six weeks riding buses ... because that's not fair. So rather than put Nunez, and us fans, through a long, riveting at-bat showcasing the very crux of baseball's battle of wits between pitcher and batter ... rather than build up the very drama that makes baseball great, Scott Schoeneweis gave us all the equivalent of that brain freeze you get by eating ice cream too fast by hitting Paul McAnulty with his first pitch with the bases loaded to sent everybody home. Not happy, but rested. And that works for the greater good.

Besides, the Mets kinda didn't deserve to win anyway ... what with their five measly hits off of Josh Banks (who hadn't given up a run in his first three starts of the season before tonight which didn't shake Gary Cohen's firm belief that the Mets would come into San Diego with such ferocity against their staff that every pet in Petco Park would be let loose) and their bagel against the bullpen which included Heath Bell ... who surely is in the Padres locker room laughing his ass off right now. So why draw out what really should have been a loss anyway?

(Editor's note: Mike Pelfrey gets so little run support that he's becoming that employee that always arrives to the conference room late when there's pizza on the table, and all that's left is the pie with all those vegetables on it that nobody eats so Pelfrey just skips it and starves.)

So you think you're pissed now? Imagine losing 2-1 in 43 innings instead of the regulation nine? Don't think it's not possible with these two teams ... especially with Abraham Nunez on the bench instead of ... say ... Ike Davis.

Hardcore Insanity

What some people refer to as "hardcore", others refer to as "insane".

When I broached the idea of seeing four major league baseball games in a span of 48 hours, with about 14 hours of driving inter-dispersed among the 48 hours, I sat on the fence...teetering back and forth about whether this was the act of a couple of hardcore baseball fans, or whether it was the final step towards the looney bin.

So was all the effort worth it? Was it hardcore? Was it insane? (Warning: what you are about to read is an epic...split up into digestible parts, but epic nonetheless. Not epic as in good...just long. Be prepared.)

Game One: Quadruple "A"

My brother warned me that the Great American Ballpark was a really nice minor league ballpark, kind of like those players that dominate AAA ball, but can't quite climb the Mendoza line in the majors. I can't go quite that far in assessing the Reds' home, but there is definitely a minor league feel to the park. It's intimate, it has fireworks, and it's very...very...red. It's easy for a camera to spot a Mets fan in the crowd, as black and orange seem to clash with all the red seats, the red shirts, and the blood spilled by Reds fans as...

All right, maybe not quite that red. But as you can tell from the picture above, there were plenty of Mets fans at GAB on Tuesday night. And the boys at Faith and Fear in Flushing would be happy to know that one of those Met fans was sporting the now classic number shirt seen in many cities around the world, and now in Ohio...though I wasn't fast enough to grab a picture of the guy, you guys will just have to trust me that he was there.

We spent the first three innings in the Riverfront Club, which is basically fancy food, real plates, and free beer. What's better than that? (If you go, try the cream of shallot). How about the kid waiter who watched Paul Lo Duca's first home run with us, not batting an eye when we clapped politely?

"I don't care who you root for, as long as I get paid. I'm actually a Mets fan anyways."

This was quickly followed by the poor kid getting admonished by his boss for not keeping the tables clean.

Then there was the bitter Reds fan sitting at the bar who noticed my Pedro jersey and starts in with the bartender...her rant went something like "blah blah blah blah blah all these Mets fans blah blah blah blah blah blah they're just like Cub fans blah blah blah blah blah blah".

OK then.

Then it was off to our big time seats about 22 rows up from the Reds dugout, and sitting next to a Cincinnati celebrity...namely: Rocco Castellano, a fitness instructor and attitude adjustor who has been on local radio, and is not only good people, but he's actually a Mets fan from New Jersey. Wearing a Pedro Martinez jersey in enemy territory, it was good to have a fitness instructor on my side (because I'm too anemic to defend myself, as you know). As for the attitude adjusting, I wonder if Guillermo Mota has been a recent beneficiary of Rocco's expert teachings. If not, he probably should be.

Definitely make a pilgrimage to the place for no other reason than the fact that you can run to the bathroom and get back to your seat without missing a pitch. You couldn't do that at Shea unless you used an empty cup at your seat. And also, try the deep fried twinkies. Just stay away from that chili/spaghetti mess unless you have had tetanus shots.

We were lucky to be present at the game on the all-important 26th anniversary of Woody Woodward almost being hit by a ten pound sack of flour at Dodger Stadium. And it was another not so great day in Reds history 36 years later...as not only did Lo Duca hit his second dinger of the night, but my brother spent the entire night heckling Adam Dunn. Good times had by all (especially the guy in his fifties who was literally dancing in the street after the game because Orlando Hernandez threw him a baseball and he caught it), as the Mets had their first five game winning streak of the season (you know, I heard that no team ever made the playoffs without a five game winning streak), and my road record ran to 5-0. But as you know, all good things...

Game Two: What's Up Old People?

We knew it was going to be one of those special kinda days when we rode the elevator with Thom Brenneman at Wednesday afternoon's Mets/Reds tilt. Say what you want about Brenneman (and I have), but the guy not only called Boise State's Fiesta Bowl masterpiece, he has now also called Appalachian State's massive upset over Michigan. That's cache, my friends.

We traveled up to the upper deck to find my niece, at the game with her schoolmates...and along the way found a Reds usher clapping wildly for Aaron Harang as he was announced as the Reds' Roberto Clemente award candidate (and seeing how empty the upper deck was that day, we have strong suspicions that the usher was, in reality, Aaron Harang's mom.)

So my brother finds his daughter in the upper deck among her schoolmates (great school system in Cincinnati...as soon as the class saw us two mooks in our Mets jerseys, the teachers spurred their kids to chant "Let's Go Reds" at us. That's some mighty hospitality there...must be that "midwest polite") and gives her a Mets hat to wear. She then asks her daddy with a big smile on her face: "Are you going to watch the game with me?" My brother...still stinging over the fact that his daughter had him in the bathroom at GAB while Pedro Martinez was striking out his 3,000th career batter on Monday...said "nope, I just came to give you your hat".

That's good parenting.

What he probably wanted to say was that we had much better seats than the class. For reference, here's approximately what row Q gets you at Shea Stadium:

Meanwhile, here's row Q in Cincinnati:

Not bad, eh?

But before we got back to our row Q, I took this picture in the concourse of a painting featuring the Big Red Machine:


You'll notice the former Met in the lower right corner...that's correct, George Foster. I took this picture thinking "oh, here's an opportunity to rip on Foster in my next blog entry for never, ever diving for a fly ball in a Mets uniform".

Wouldn't you know that a few feet to the left of the picture that I was going to segue into a George Foster joke, was George Foster himself? Yes...George Foster was signing autographs for the throngs of people waiting in line to buy his signature on an 8X10 for $25.

Well, actually, it was more like the throng of person waiting for his autograph...so you know I couldn't let this opportunity go by without getting a picture with the man, and getting a personalized 8X10. George Foster...who once hit a triple in a Mets uniform, but was now wearing a Reds jersey during this session, was taking a picture with little ol' me. That's when this exchange occurred:

GF: Try not to beat up on us too bad today, OK?

MD: You know when the Mets signed you, it was the first step in the Mets
becoming relevant again.

GF: I thought I was the only one who figured that out.

Still confident after all these years.

(Foster would later do an interview on the Diamondvision, and when asked to give a message to the senior citizens on Senior Citizens Day, the 59 year-old Foster's inspirational message was: "What's up old people!")

The game featured temperatures that reached 105, the Mets being shut down by some guy named Tom Shearn, and Joey Votto getting his first major league hit, a bomb off of John Maine (along with the appearance of maybe the greatest name ever for a baseball player: Buck Coats.) And I gotta say: I've never had so much fun at a 7-0 beating in my life. Consider that for the final three innings, we sat here:

This picture was taken right before my conversation with Jose, which was basically me asking Jose if he was enjoying his day off, and Reyes nodding his head and flexing his muscles...telling me he needed to get stronger (probably more mentally than physically, I'd say).

Mets fans had taken over the rows behind the dugout, having a good time talking to their team...but wondering why Moises Alou wouldn't smile at them. Rest assured that Moises isn't a dour guy. He's just afraid that if he smiles, he'll pull a face muscle and be out for three weeks, so he's just thinking of the team in this instance.

A funny thing happened during the ninth inning down 0-7. Mets fans were getting up a "Let's Go Mets" chant. Certainly a far cry from some of the seemingly constant complainin' about the team back here in New York to hear a group of fans blissfully backing the team with the stench of the Phillies series seeming more and more like a distant memory. It was a glorious thing. But it had to be interrupted by a higher calling, which was my brother heckling Mike Stanton:

"Hey Stanton, Prince Fielder called, he wants his pants back!"

No matter that he was closing out a day game doldrum for the Mets, we had to extract our pound of flesh from a Hall of Hate charter member (my only regret was that I couldn't tie a Krispy Kreme to a fishing pole and dangle it in front of Stanton in hopes that he's chase it. Next year.)

Game Three: Free Parking

Here was the challenge of the day...get from Cincinnati to Chicago in four hours, find parking, and get in our seats by 8:05 for our first ever trip to Wrigley Field to see the Cubs and the Dodgers. Who could blame us for thinking we had a chance...as not only did we hear on the radio that batting practice was delayed by a thunderstorm, but that the Braves had come back to defeat the Phillies 9-8 after being down 0-5 when we left GAB, keeping the Mets lead at five games. This prompted my brother to call a Phillies fan to rub it in, with me doing the tomahawk chop in the background.

Yes, things were coming together.

The festive atmosphere we anticipated at Wrigley caused me to start singing the Amy Winehouse song "They tried to make me go to rehab but I said 'no, no, no'" for the better part of three hours (my brother probably needed rehab after acquiring that earworm from me). Unfortunately, we missed most of the festive, rehab-free atmosphere of Wrigley as we didn't get to the park until the bottom of the fourth (while missing some guy from Reno 911 throwing out the first pitch).

Then it took two innings to park the car.

Luckily, we ran into a couple leaving the game who my brother subconsciously willed into giving us their parking sticker so that we wouldn't have to find the missing parking attendant and give up upwards of forty dollars to park and watch three innings of baseball...as we didn't sit down in Wrigley until the bottom of the sixth. (So let this be a lesson to those of you thinking of trying this kind of trip: Cincinnati to Chicago is impossible if you want to see every pitch. Can't be done. Believe me, we tried. Any faster, and we would have had Jackie Gleason and Boss Hog tailing us.)

But three innings in Wrigley was more than enough for one night (and in my mind, it still counts as two games in one day...pretty cool.) Night games in Wrigley, even if consumed in a small dose, are an event. What more could you want from a baseball game than an electric crowd, a beer, and national television?

How about not having a pillar in front of your seat?

No wonder I was able to get these tickets so easily online. No matter, because I scored my Derrek Lee bobblehead doll (which upon entering my apartment, immediately leaped from the box and hit a home run off of my Heath Bell bobblehead doll) thanks to our Chicago mole who was actually there early enough to be one of the first 10,000 fans to enter the park (don't worry, for his efforts I paid for his ticket...I'm a compassionate one).

The Cubs won in a laugher, which meant we were lucky (?) enough to hear the Go Cubs Go song that the team has adopted as a theme song. Here are the lyrics:

They're singing ...Go, Cubs, go
Go, Cubs, go
Hey, Chicago, what do you say
The Cubs are gonna win today.
Go, Cubs, go
Go, Cubs, go
They tried to make me go to rehab, I said: Go Cubs Go

Oh, sorry...I got my earworms mixed up.

After the game featured the only Wrigley reference to my Mets hat (the infamous travel hat, by the way) which came from a vendor who was selling a t-shirt on Waveland which referred to the sexual preference of the St. Louis Cardinals. He spots my Met hat and says:

"You must hate the Cardinals as much as we do."

Which was met by three simple words that came out of my mouth: "Yadier...f***ing...Molina".

In one respect, brothers in arms.

Game Four: One With...

Now Wrigley Field was great. But I did have a couple of complaints. The one Cub souvenir that I really wanted was a Cliff Floyd shirt. I figured that going into a Cubs shop across the street from the Field and seeing t-shirts immortalizing the likes of Matt Murton, Carlos Marmol, and Ronny Cedeno would up my chances of finding a Cubs shirt featuring a Chicago native. But alas, my efforts to find a "Floyd 15" shirt was futile. And as much as I love Cliff, I wasn't dropping a buck-sixty on an official "Floyd 15" jersey.

My other complaint were the bathrooms. Call me crazy, but relieving myself in a community sink isn't my idea of fun. (If you've been there, you know what I mean.)

But no Cliff Floyd tee, hijinks in the bathroom, and the lack of opportunity to boo the resting Jeff Kent for a second straight day were made up for by the hot dogs. Guys and gals, do yourselves a favor. Go to the hot dog stand and order a "one with". Just trust us.

And then, after Andre Ethier broke the Cubs hearts with a three run home run off of Ryan Dempster in the ninth (apparently, the Mets aren't the only team that has Dempster's number), it was time to end our trip, and take the long trip home. So was it worth it? Was driving and riding all these miles to see four ball games in 48 hours worth the effort?

Damn straight.

So I guess my vote is for hardcore.

But you know, we passed by Indianapolis on the way back home from Wrigley on Thursday night. We could have caught a quarter of the NFL opener on our way back to Cincinnati.

Hey, what do you think...we're insane?

The Injury Plague Continues

NEW YORK (AP) -- Billy Wagner was placed on the 15-day DL after tonight's game due to inflammation of the metatarsal bursa scarpal tunnel. The ailment is more commonly known as "Motaitis".

Wagner says he felt discomfort soon after the ninth inning, when he blew the save against the San Diego Padres.

"It's tough, but we feel the need to just give him some time to rest, heal, and work out his problems in a rehab session" said Willie Randolph. "I know in my time here that some people can pitch with it, and some can't."

"Aaron Heilman, who has been pitching through Motaitis since the beginning of the season, feels the move to put Wagner on the DL was the right choice.

When one person has Motaitis, you can kind of pitch through it" said Heilman, who gave up the game winning homer to Adrian Gonzalez in the tenth inning on Thursday. "But when it becomes an epidemic, something has to give. We can't let an ailment like that affect the entire clubhouse where all of a sudden nobody can get anybody out. We're gonna miss Billy, but honestly it's the best thing for the club."

Yeah, leave it to me to take a shot at Guillermo Mota after a loss that he had nothing to do with. But I can't help it. To put it bluntly, the bullpen...the strength of the team in 2006, is going to be its death in 2007. (Oh wait, it was our death in 2006, wasn't it? Oh crap.)

It really was a hell of a game on Thursday. And I can say that because both the Phillies and the Braves have both lost so I can look at Shea's happenings from merely a baseball standpoint, and not from an "I'm going to hit myself in the face with a mallet" standpoint. In fact, this whole series contained three restaurant quality games between these two teams. And if we do see these guys down the road in October, it's either going to be really fun, or really excruciating. (Could you, for example, stomach a seven game series where Heath Bell has a 0.00 ERA against the Mets and Mike Cameron has two walk-off hits?)

Here's my one question: How, on God's green earth did the Mets ever let Marlon Anderson get away? The freakin' guy was money in '05, money in 2006 with the Dodgers. He could have been money in 2006 with the Mets instead...what if it was Marlon Anderson pinch hitting for Chad Bradford in last year's Game 7 instead of Michael Tucker?

I'm just sayin'.

The Crest of Emotion

I can't be sure, but I'm guessing that it had to be Marlon Anderson who made the inspirational pregame speech exhorting his teammates to win one for pride. Win one for the home crowd. But most of all, win one for the recently retired Ricky Ledee.

This one had all the twists and turns of a well written movie like Arlington Road...or Fight Club...or American Pie...you couldn't tell what the story was. First it was the sign that the Mets could beat up on top pitchers like Chris Young when healthy. And it was the continuing hot streak of Carlos Beltran.

Then, it was John Maine running out of gas...and the inability, once again, of the Mets bullpen to hold his lead, even though Aaron Heilman wasn't one of the culprits.

(But then the world got normal when Heilman came in and had one of the worst outings ever had by a pitcher who gave up no runs.)

That's when things got weird.

I felt on Sunday that things were turning around for the Mets, and the eighth inning proved it. Because the Mets of June and July would have let their former bullpen mate Heath Bell come in, walk all over them, and when the game was over throw beer cans at them like the one you see here. And then I would have had to put Bell on the hate list for learning a new slider after he leaves the Mets...I kept wondering where that slider was when he was firing fastball after fastball after fastball to Derrek Lee at Wrigley in 2005. But he saves it for Carlos Beltran.

Alas, this isn't June or July for Carlos Beltran either, and Beltran slapped one into left to tie the game in the bottom of the eighth, and turned Heath Bell into just another ex-Met victim.

You knew that there would be some drama left as Billy Wagner blew the tie in the ninth, leaving Met fans muttering to themselves wondering if there is anybody in the bullpen that can just come in and have a 1-2-3 inning. I mean, is that too much to ask?

But yet again, the Mets of June and July would have gone down meekly against a closer on the level of Trevor Hoffman. Not this time. Not this team. Not this team at this time. Not the time, the team, the Mets...oh no. Not winning players like Lastings Milledge, Mike DiFelice, Marlon Anderson, or Jose Reyes. And certainly not Luis Castillo...who's arrival has brought a 12-6 record in an August that will sadly be more known for four horrific losses than for a .667 winning percentage.

(And by the way, the Braves? The wonderful, heroic, world beating, cancer curing Braves according to Steve Phillips, are 10-9 in August...even with Mark Teixeira's bat...after losing tonight to the Reds. And that's the Jeff Conine-less Reds, mind you.)

So that's one big pitcher down, the other one coming on Wednesday in the form of Jake Peavy. With the wave of emotion coming over the Mets squarely at its crest, it really doesn't matter who's pitching, who's hitting, or who's giving the pre-game speech. With Ricky Ledee in their hearts, there's no speech necessary.

(Editor's note: One year minus one day ago, the Mets faced the same kind of problems regarding that killer instinct. Then Carlos Beltran hit a walk-off HR against Jason Isringhausen and a sleeping dog got its swagger back. Fifty-two weeks later, another relatively flat team that had been slowly climbing the ladder of crispness showed its fangs, its killer instinct, and its rock and roll against another top closer. Hopefully, unlike 52 weeks prior, that top closer will not get hurt, paving the way for some no-name starter to join the major league club and throw a wicked curveball past Beltran for strike three in the 2007 NLCS. If I have to send Trevor Hoffman some herbal tea and some aromatherapy to keep him fit, I'll do it. So stay well, Trevor.)

Science Lab Blows Up

Saturday night's 11-4 loss to Pittsburgh may have signaled the end of a couple of experiments for the Mets.

First to explode: the Kaz Ishii experiment. In a season of good start, bad start, good start for Ishii, tonight was due to be bad start, and it was. But unfortunately, the Mets absolutely needed Ishii to pick to club up after their worst loss of the season on Friday. Instead, he was the ultimate downer. Not only did he put the Mets in a 3-0 hole, including giving up a HR to the immortal Humberto Cota (fast becoming the Pirates version of Pat Burrell) on an 0-2 count, but he committed the cardinal sin of giving up a run immediately after the Mets tied the game in the 6th on Cliff Floyd's solo HR (an inning after Mike Cameron pounded a two run dinger to put the Mets on the board). And it was a run created solely after two men were out. So on a night where the Mets needed Kaz Ishii to step up and help his club, he showed the intestinal fortitude of soggy mashed potatoes.

Next to explode: the Danny Graves experiment. With the game still in reach at 6-3, Danny Graves came in for a struggling Heath Bell. Graves gave up an RBI double to Cota, and a grannie to Jack "95 lbs soaking wet" Wilson to basically end all hopes.

Graves and his tattoos were a cheap option, and it's not like he replaced someone useful. But the Mets had to find out about him, and unfortunately, they'll probably go to him again. Sometimes when you don't particularly care for someone working under you in a real job, you need an excuse to get rid of that person. Sometimes that excuse comes when you stop coddling that person and you let them run with a normal workload...and when said person fails, you have your excuse to get rid of them. With the Mets having a $5 million option on Graves for next season, they can't just use him exclusively in mop-up situations and expect to have a good excuse to decline the option for 2006. They needed to give him a normal workload, and that was tonight. He failed, so that's that. The Mets will probably use him a couple of more times for confirmation, just as they did with Hitaway DeJean in Seattle.

The one thing about the Mets this season is that a struggling player will get enough rope to hang himself. But Willie Randolph and Omar Minaya will have no problem playing executioner and pull the level on that's player's career, even if it is in the middle of the season. I see it happening with Graves at the end of this campaign, and I see it with Ishii much sooner than that. In any event, next time you see either of these experiments in the game, always be sure to wear your protective goggles.