No Hamstring Left Behind

Hey, they played a game while you were asleep.

You would have enjoyed it. After a three hour rain delay (yes, the game started at 10:15 PM, officially making it a west coast game) Jorge Sosa continued being phenomenal, giving up one hit in seven innings. Damion Easley hit yet another home run (six home runs in sixty at bats puts him on pace to catch Barry Bonds by the time he's 49 years old), and the Mets won 8-1. (Time of game: 2:36. Time of Rain Delay: 3:07).

All is well? Not quite.

There is the business of Jose Reyes leaving the game in the eighth inning with a "tight hamstring". If you recall, Reyes had hamstring issues in 2004 that were so scary, some thought he would never be a completely healthy player (but really, who is?) So to a Mets fan, "tight hamstring" is to "Jose Reyes" as "jump" is to "off a building".

Hopefully, by the time you read this, Reyes' left hamstring will be as loose as (this joke has been edited by Paris Hilton's lawyers), and he'll be in the lineup for the matinee against Chicago. Keep your fingers, your hamstrings, your rap songs, and your performance enhancing drugs crossed.

Aramis Ramirez: The Final Frontier

You may have missed this, but China has recently, and successfully, launched the Nigeria Communication Satellite into orbit from the Xichang satellite launch center in China.

Unfortunately, the satellite was knocked out of orbit by Aramis Ramirez's grand slam, launched by Scott Schoeneweis at Shea Stadium in New York.

Before it could knock any satellites off the air, it turned a manageable 3-1 game into a 7-1 disaster, and it was well on it's way to the 10-1 debacle that it turned out to be.

When Aramis Ramirez is in New York, he's the greatest enemy that the space program has...if you remember (and believe me I tried to forget) he hit the same set of green seats against Steve Trachsel last July with a home run that traveled 425 feet. Obviously, he didn't want to limit the souvenirs to the people in the mezzanine box seats, so this time he hit the less expensive reserve seats with the grannie. Sure he was helped out by a slight 18 mph breeze to left field, but if that's all he needed, maybe the launch center in China should rethink their more expensive methods of satellite launching.

"That would have been an out in most parks."

"Name one..."

"Yellowstone."

So now John Maine is 5-1 instead of 5-0. He wasn't fried to a crisp as he could have been, he kept the Mets in the game for the 96 pitches and five innings that he lasted, and that's a good thing. All we can ask of Maine at this point is that if he's going to have an off night (7 hits and three walks for a game WHIP of 2), battle and keep the team in it, which he did.

Of course, Maine's counterpart Carlos Zambrano picks a great night to stop sulking over not getting that contract extension signed before the Cubs announced an impending sale of the team. Zambrano (I'm going to resist the easy "has been pitching more like Victor Zambrano" joke because I feel I'm better than that...all right, maybe not) has been subpar all season long until breaking out of the slump tonight in Flushing, going eight innings and giving up a lonely home run to Shawn Green. The Mets had opportunitites off of "Z", with Paul Lo Duca getting the big two-out hit only to have Green chucked at home...and Endy Chavez leaving a few men on the basepaths tonight with a couple of two out at bats.

And of course, tonight featured the inevitable "stick it to your former teammates" game, this time by Cliff Floyd. Floyd (who's healthy while Moises Alou is not...gee, who knew?) had three hits, a run batted in, and scored ahead of Ramirez's blast, following in the footsteps of famous "stick it to ya" games such as Mike Piazza's two HR's, Tom Seaver's complete game, and whatever Victor Zambrano has in store for us for whatever team he's playing for (because you know that will be the worst of all).

All we could have really hoped for was that Cliffy got an ovation fitting of a man who played his heart out in his time with the Mets. He did so during a time when such players seemed to be few and far between...case in point: 2003, when he basically played on one leg until the Mets were eliminated from playoff contention. It's easy to be remembered for your accomplishments towards a winner. But Cliff Floyd showed what he was all about when the chips were down...when you really find out what someone is made of. We know what Cliff Floyd is made of, and the crowd showed him that tonight...although no matter how loud the crowd would have gotten for him, it would have never seemed like enough.

Of course, Cliff will surely test the limits of that love with another bushel of hits in the next two games. It's inevitable.

Benefitting From The Wildness Of Others

The ball wasn't even in the glove when Gary Cohen bellowed "ball four" to signal the completion of the comeback against the Chicago Cubs...as if there was any other way that game could end after Michael Wuertz couldn't find the plate against Endy Chavez and Carlos Beltran (don't let the "intentional walk" on the stat sheet fool you, that Beltran walk was three balls and a white flag).

Carlos Delgado, who I'm sure was tempted to either ground a ball to the left side or lay down a bunt to send a message regarding the "Delgado shift", instead did the sensible thing and worked out a walk (off win) against Wuertz to put the seal-a-meal on a 5-4 victory, and their return to first place (thank you, Jason Bergmann).

Tom Glavine wasn't sharp in seeking victory number 295, giving up a single to Jason Marquis drove home that point along with two runs. But the Mets bullpen outperformed the Cubs bullpen, as not only did Wuertz give it away in the ninth, but they roughed up a guy who's ice cream I bought over the weekend.

Rocky Cherry?

There's a name that's about as ill-advised as the plot line that had Florence date Bentley in the later seasons of The Jeffersons.

Yeah, that show was put to rest a little late. Here's what else is put to rest: talk of David Wright's slump. Wright is hitting .429 since May 7th, which just happens to be the day that Wright shaved his head and had the rest of the team shave theirs!!! So when you're looking for the turning point in the young man's season...

(Well, not really. Wright actually shaved his head on May 8th...but this is what's known as poetic license, which is what major networks like FOX will take when trying to come up with storylines for the turning point of David Wright's slump come October...because come on, you don't really expect the network to mention the Mets and their shaved heads before Saturday's telecast of Mets/Yankees? They're working on their six minute Matt DeSalvo piece as we speak!)

Real Men And Their Pink Bats

The most insightful thing I can tell you right now is that if you want to take a cue from the pink bats and armbands that major leaguers were using today, then go to this website and donate some money in the name of the New York Mets towards a cure for breast cancer and help them reach their goal of $25,000.

Or, you can buy a pink bat much like the one Carlos Beltran used to put the icing on today's 9-1 cake, and more proceeds will go to the Susan G. Komen foundation.

Otherwise, I'm speechless.

Speechless because Oliver Perez is threatening to make the Xavier Nady trade look not only even, but decidedly in the Mets favor. His 8 and 1/3 inning of shutout ball before Bill Hall's annual Mother's Day Tribute Home Run is going to go a long way towards making believers out of the largest skeptics of Met starting pitching.

(Of course his one hit was to the pitcher, and I think I feel better with Perez giving up the home run to Hall than I would if Perez had pitched a one-hit shutout where the one hit was to the pitcher...just another game that would have tortured my no-hitless soul.)

Speechless because Damion Easley hit another home run, and I'm left wondering what is in this guy's Wheaties...and do they sell it in bulk.

Speechless because Carlos Gomez's debut (two hits, one diving catch, one stolen base), is giving the Mets a future that is starting to match their present.

Speechless because Perez didn't pull a hamstring rounding the bases on Jose Reyes' triple (hey, what's Brian Bannister doing these days?)

Speechless because the Mets have taken two out of three from the team with the best record in the National League...coming just one Mike Pelfrey away from a sweep. Pelfrey, if you hadn't heard, was the New Orleans sacrifice to make room for Gomez, and even though I have been the biggest proponent of keeping Pelfrey up here and letting him work through his problems in the major leagues, I'm at peace with the decision. The major leagues can be used to work through some problems, but not 0-5 with an ERA hovering around seven with a fastball that doesn't move and a slider that is just about as hard on the stomach as the sliders you get from White Castle, but they don't taste nearly as good.

At Least Pete Goes To Barbados

This was not the way that my first game at Shea was supposed to go.

But at least the seats were good.

Actually, that's a severe understatement, the seats were unbelievable! To give you an idea of how good these seats were that were basically field level right behind the plate, the seat number started with an "X" to give you the feel that you were going to a trendy club.

(Actually, those blue seats that were added in front of those original orange seats behind the plate are like going to the club since they were actually chained off. All that was missing were the bouncers that kept you away from the models...just ushers that popped up out of nowhere like they were in a jack in the box to keep people out of those seats in the eighth inning after the cat was already let on to the porch at 9-3. Aah, ushers.)

The seats came courtesy of a commenter we know as "Kingman Fan", who I had the pleasure of meeting through the poetically indestructible Greg Prince, who I had finally had the pleasure of meeting in person (for those wondering if two bloggers getting together would create a more powerful and ground-breaking perspective the likes of which have never been seen before, all we really decided was that maybe Mike Pelfrey needs another trip to New Orleans...and he really didn't need me for that.) Now when I say "Kingman Fan", I really mean it. He had the authentic "KINGMAN 26" authentic jersey to prove it. He'll be happy (or disturbed) to know that he was not the last Met fan I saw today with a Kingman model, as another authentic Kingman authentic popped up at the Roosevelt Ave. train stop while transferring after the game.

(But the winner of today's "jersey you don't see every day" contest goes to the guy with the powder blue Milwaukee Brewer "VUKOVICH 50" jersey. Dude, you win. And did you know he played Clue Haywood in "Major League"?)

Unfortunately, the 1982 references weren't done there, as the Brewers and Mets both played like their 1982 counterparts, which is to say that they played like the American League Champs that they were and we...well we had Dave Kingman. Pelfrey was the Mike Scott of the group, and not the Mike Scott that had learned his "split fingered fastball" (which was a middle fingered fastball in the '86 NLCS), but the Mike Scott that was nicknamed "the human white flag" back in '82. Pelfrey didn't get a whole lot of help from his defense, which somehow turned a fourth inning Prince Fielder pop-up with the bases loaded into a double play, but not before Craig Counsell and Tony Gwynn Jr. tagged up and scored while the Mets were infatuated with getting J.J. Hardy out on the basepaths.

And really, even though the Brewers opened the spigots with eight more runs including Hardy's grand slam against Joe Smith, the game was over after the Mets "Hardy Boy Mystery" in the fourth (first and last time for that reference...promise). Not even David Newhan's pinch home run brought the crowd fully back into the game, as the prevailing thought was that the game should have at least been tied after the botched rundown. But Newhan's home run did send a guy named Pete to Barbados as it was the hometown home run inning, so somebody besides the Brewers fans in the stands went home completely happy.

***

Here are some things I learned for being at Shea for the first time this season. Some things most of you know (since I hope you've all taken at least one trek out to Shea before me in '07), others you may not:

• The bleachers are roped off into sections now. 50, 52, 54, 56, and I think 58 (kind of like jersey sizes, but they're actually a continuation of the upper deck sections). The bleachers is one spot that I have yet to sit in, because it's exclusively either group sales (I don't have that many friends), or Pepsi can night (I'm a Coca-Cola guy). So that's my mission before Citi Field takes its initial bow.
• Speaking of the new park, it has now become officially bizarre to see scaffolding directly behind the outfield. I thought it was weird when it happened in Cincinnati, especially since they tore down the outfield stands of Riverfront Stadium while construction for the Great American Ballpark was happening while the Reds still played in the old cookie cutter. But to see it behind Shea is just totally mind boggling and surreal.
• What is with the spinning Dunkin Donuts coffee cup in the left field bullpen which spins after a home run? It's gotta be the most out of place product placement gimmick ever. But knowing the way our franchise works sometimes, I could totally see that thing following us to the new park, while the Home Run Apple gets left behind or put on eBay because some think it's cheesy. This possibility scares me to death.
• This next thing was also noted here, but I can say it too because I came up with it all on my own, I promise. But do you find it weird that after a fan was banned from Shea Stadium for shining a light into Edgar Renteria's eyes, the Mets have Flashlight day? (I heard that the Mets are going to have reflective mirror night in June, sponsored by Dunkin Donuts of course.)
• During the fateful eighth inning, I ran to the food line behind the plate. I thought there was a really long stoppage of play because there were loud commercials hawking concerts and what not on the television screen. But while I was listening to that thinking I wasn't missing anything, Joe Smith hit Gabe Gross. And I had no idea the game was even going on. Can we turn down the commercials on the concourses while the game is going on, please? Dopey people like me get confused.

***

Sunday is Chris Capuano vs. Oliver Perez, and the Mets had better find a way to bounce back and take two of three from Milwaukee. Because, to paraphrase our ticket benefactor Kingman Fan, they're running out of body parts to shave.

Setting Pace

Surely you heard the news today that iPods can disturb the rhythm of your pacemaker.

I wonder if there's scientific proof that watching Aaron Heilman pitch can do the same?

Heilman made a 5-2 game into a 5-4 game with one swing of the bat, but settled down in time to hand the ball to Country Time Billy Wagner for a six pitch save in a one run victory over Jeff Suppan and the Brewers.

Aah, Jeff Suppan. The Mets scored four runs off of him in the fourth inning, and of course the inevitable question popped in: "Where was this in Game 7?" But at least Suppan is having a somewhat decent season. You know what really depresses me? It depresses me that Jeff Flippin' Weaver, who basically shut the Mets down in Games 1 and 5 in last season's NLCS, is 0-6 with a 14.32 ERA. Do you know how bad that is? His last start for Seattle saw him give up six runs in five innings...and his ERA went down! Now, Weaver is now on the disabled list for Seattle, and is a candidate to be either sent to the bullpen or released upon his return.

The same Jeff Weaver we couldn't hit in the playoffs last year.

That's depressing. It's about as depressing as thinking that Heilman has turned the corner with sixteen straight outs, but then he gives up a home run to J.J. Hardy to make things more difficult.

But let's look at the bright side:

• Heilman did straighten out in time to get three outs before getting that third run
• David Wright and Carlos Delgado both cranked home runs (Delgado's to the opposite field) to hopefully put them or keep them on the road to recovery. Damion Easley also hit another home run which turned out to be the winning run (thanks to Heilman).
• Jorge Sosa was good again for the Mets. The home run bug hit him in the fifth and sixth as Geoff Jenkins and Prince Fielder touched him up. But between the two of them and J.J. Hardy, we're not exactly talking about giving up long balls to Rafael Belliard, Frank Taveras, and Buddy Biancalana. This is a good Brewers team, which brings me to the next point:
• This is a good Brewers team. (Redundant? Redundant? Redundant?) This was the series known as the litmus test for us and for them. The Mets took round one, which is huge considering tomorrow's pitching matchup (Ben Sheets vs. Mike Pelfrey) doesn't exactly inspire a lot of confidence.

So sit back and enjoy a cold brew tomorrow (that is, if alcohol hasn't been banned from your clubhouse yet) and enjoy a game that would merely be the foam off the top if the Mets can pull off the win.