Wham! Biff! Pow!

King Felix was exiled, Heath Bell was freed…oh, and we pasted the Philadelphia Phillies. I mean pasted: This was a no-prisoners, baby-seal-clubbing, closed-casket rout.

A club-record seven home runs, including two by Victor Diaz (whom I'd

feared would be benched for forgetting how many outs there were

yesterday), two by Reyes, a majestic shot by Piazza (who'd never

homered in Citizens Bank Park, oddly) and David Wright's first grand

slam. Oh, and Mientky hit one too. I know you know — it was just fun

to type all that.

And don't forget Victor Zambrano, at least at the plate — on the mound

he was irritating as usual. Any time your pitcher has a two-run triple,

you can basically guarantee football scores are being posted. I mean,

has any pitcher ever hit a two-run triple and lost a 3-2 nailbiter?

Those things always come when it's 9-4 in the fifth. (For instance.)

Not like you could really blame the Phillies for that one — walking

the eighth-place hitter after he's connected twice isn't exactly

advanced strategy. Has a Met pitcher tripled since Leiter did it a

couple of years back? That remains one of my favorite

Shea memories — 30,000 people laughing at once is quite a sound.

A pause here to note my appreciation of Gary Cohen and Howie Rose as a

radio team. While I'd rather be watching on TV to catch the little

things, these two are just fantastic company. Loose, funny, smart,

historically minded — it's an absolute treat to listen to them. Two of

my favorite points made during the night: Why on earth was poor Mike

Lieberthal stuck in that mess for that long? And how did the Phillies

let the Mets club balls halfway to Portugal and never once sit someone

down in the batter's box? This isn't to say you knock Victor Diaz's

helmet off or something Clemenseque, but you can't just shrug off being

a team's personal BP pitchers. The game has definitely changed.

Anyway, I think we both agree that this was a baseball team in fairly

desperate need of a laugher. Late-inning magic is wonderful, but it's

also bloody exhausting.