The Quads Match The Collars

Instead of a players only team meeting, maybe the gang should have had a seance to try to conjure up some ghosts from 1986 to give them some luck.

Actually, I thought they already took care of that in the ninth inning tonight, when three straight hits with two outs in the ninth all of a sudden looked very eerie, and very familiar. Let's just say that if Chad Cordero had thrown a wild pitch at Ruben Gotay's feet, I would have dusted off my Ouija Board.

But Gotay struck out to end the game. There are no ghosts resurrected from 1986. Keith Hernandez's chair at RFK Stadium had no more hits in it. And Gene Mauch is playing craps in heaven, rolling seven after seven while yelling "Let it ride! Let it ride!"

I wonder if anyone inside that clubhouse during that players' only meeting realizes how close they are to the brink of history...as in the worst historical regular season collapse this side of the California Angels. Nobody has ever been seven or more games up past September 12th and been overtaken. However, our team is doing a really good job of trying to execute this trick.

(Editor's note: If the trick is turned, then 1964 would no longer be Baseball's Most Memorable Collapse, now would it? That would mean that somebody would have to write the story of Baseball's New Most Memorable Collapse. The author of this blog would like to volunteer his services to you publishers out there.)

Do they realize what they're doing to us? Think about it for a second. Think about all the firepower contained in the lineup of the team we root for...yet we're reduced to depending on the offensive production of Miguel Cairo.

Oh, you remember Miguel Cairo don't you? Once, he was the bane of the Mets existence when he wore your uniform in 2005. Now, he's the third place hitter on a team that regularly decides to bat their pitcher eighth. And now we're hoping that Cairo has a four hit day so that the Mets can stay 2 and 1/2 games in first place.

That's pathetic, but that's what our troops have reduced us to by giving up 47 runs to the worst hitting team in the National League...you know, part of that "easy" schedule we were "lucky" enough to draw these past two weeks. Don't they know nothing comes easy? Nothing comes easy to the team that has one pitcher in a boot, another pitcher in need of a boot, a third pitcher designated for assignment, and a fourth pitcher who was designated as the latest pitcher to blow a four run lead.

Oh yeah, and a 40-year-old left fielder with a tight quad...to match everybody else's tight collars. Joy.

So what's tomorrow's meeting going to cover?

A Quantity Of One

It sure didn't seem as neat and tidy as a 2-0 win should have been. There were runners all over the place against Oliver Perez, who wasn't too sharp with his control despite not allowing a run through the first three and 1/3.

And then there was Miguel Cairo's fly ball to left field at Yankee Stadium, which has been a coffin corner for the Mets at times, between Lenny Harris' deflected ball off his glove for a home run, and Todd Zeile's home run except for the fact that it wasn't which resulted in Timo Perez becoming a household name by not running. So when Carlos Gomez went back to the wall, there was trouble written all over my television screen.

And when that fan in the front row lept out of his seat to try to become part of the game and interfere with the natural order of life, the worry on my screen grew ten-fold. You know what can happen when kids...or drunks...or well meaning folk with walkmen decide they want to be part of the fun.

But the ball landed harmlessly in a leaping Carlos Gomez's glove, who turned it into a double play, saving the Mets from not only their fifth loss in a row, but the embarrassment of getting through a lineup full of all-star caliber players only to give up the big hit to Miguel freakin' Cairo.

Subsequent to that catch, Perez calmed down and looked a lot better the rest of the way going 7 and 1/3's scoreless before giving way to the bullpen for some stellar work. And by the way, even though it was Gomez and not Chavez, and even though Gomez only prevented a double while Chavez prevented a two run HR, did you think back to Endy's catch when you saw Perez with his arm up in celebration? Did you get all warm and tingly inside for a moment before you remembered how that game ended? Thankfully, this game ended differently.

It still doesn't mask the deficiency of the middle of the order. The Mets lineup, you see, is a tasty treat. Unfortunately, the tasty treat in question is a doughnut. Gomez and Jose Reyes provided the speed and savvy, with Gomez bunting his way on base twice against the aging walrus that is Roger Clemens (gee, making the 45 year old move around...what a novel concept), and Reyes driving both runs in with a single and an upper deck dinger. But Carlos Delgado took the golden sombrero tonight against some less than nasty stuff from Clemens. Diesel struck out against batting practice fastballs, for crying out loud. And the four through eight hitters in the lineup had a grand total of zero hits.

So while the Mets are finally in the win column with a one game winning streak, there was little of quality to fall back on to make this blogger feel that this team is completely out of the woods. Saturday features Tyler Clippard for the Yankees, who baffled the Mets at Shea Stadium causing my back to go out (well, it wasn't exactly Tyler Clippard that did that, but it's a good story). The Mets lineup has an opportunity to get well against this rookie now that there's some tape on him. He fooled them once, shame on him. Fool them twice?

Well, you know who gets shame then.