Monsta's Ball

It’s Cliff Floyd’s world. We’re just living in it.

Our left fielder, our cleanup hitter, our heart, our soul, our leader, our de facto captain, our barometer of what’s what, our very own Monsta took care of business that desperately needed attending to Saturday night.

Cliff Floyd is in business…business of kicking Brendan Donnelly’s ass. And let me tell ya:

Business is booming.

As was Cliff’s bat in the tenth when he prevented a three-game losing streak from growing to four. Prevented us from falling further behind the pack. Prevented us from falling five out of first, exactly where we were at the end of the last Turner Field debacle.

One man do all that? Not exactly. He had help.

• JoRey, who turned 22, got on and rattled Donnelly (in what had to be the twentieth minute of Cliff’s ultimately decisive at-bat) with that anything-but-gratuitous steal of third. Happy birthday to us all.

• Cameron, who didn’t strike out in the tenth.

• Benson, who continues to pitch (7 innings, four hits, no walks) up to his contract.

• Beltran, who continues to hit like a pauper but field like a prince. He robbed at least one Molina of a home run that would’ve made it 4-1, which by the way the Mets have been dealing with offensive adversity lately would’ve been the equivalent of 40-1.

• Heilman, who is the new Roberto Hernandez. Two innings of relief that would be clutch from anyone, lifesaving from a guy who, if memory serves, had never been called on to do that before.

Yes, it was a team effort to get us to sweet, sweet victory. A lot of guys contributed. I think I’ve covered all of them. I’m almost sure I have. Lemme think…close game…good pitching…nice catch…first pinch-hit inside-the-park home run in Mets history…THAT’S IT!

It’s Marlon Anderson’s world, too. I don’t know if any of us want to live in it, though, given that we’d all be out of breath and banged up by the time we’d traveled all the way around it. Omigosh, what a sequence. Gets to 3-and-1 against probably the best reliever in baseball. Finds a pitch to stroke to right-center. Finley, the deadliest center fielder we’ve ever encountered (Pratt or not), doesn’t make a fantastic catch. And then he kicks it. And he kicks it past The Greatest Player Who Ever Lived who was coming over to back up Finley. And there’s the ball, rattling around in right field. For all the talk of how big an outfield Shea has, it’s also forgivingly symmetrical. It’s no wonder nobody’d circled the bases without going over the fence in sixteen years.

Yet there’s the ball, not being picked up. And there’s Marlon, running hard every gosh darn step of the way. He easily has a triple. Easily. If he can get to third, he’ll be there with one out…and right, he better keep going. No way a Met brings a runner home from third. I sure hope Manny Acta is thinking the same thing.

He is! Marlon has this look on his face that says “Really? Well, if you insist.” And his unremarkable body keeps chugging. Finley has the ball. He hits the cutoff man. Marlon’s run 340 feet…350 feet…357…358…he slides…another Molina awaits.

Here’s the throw, there’s the play at the plate…

Holy cow, I think he’s gonna make it!

Stop right there. It’s 2-2, the Mets with the second run that’s eluded them since the second inning, attained in the most unimaginable, unbelievable fashion they could concoct.

After that, it would be cruel to lose it. Cruel and usual. Boy did they try to make it four losses in a row. But not this Saturday night, fellas. Not with Cliff resolving all differences at home plate. See that pileup at the end? Even Trachsel was out there jumping around. It gave new resonance to the all-purpose advice of superagent Ari Gold.

Got a losing streak? Let’s hug it out, bitch.