Could it be? It looks like it…it is! It's a victory in a previously impossible precise circumstance: The Mets won the second game of a way-out-west road series for the first time all year.
Wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles and all that. The Mets put an end, at least for one supersatisfying night, to the 2005 tradition of losing the first two games (at least) of a set in The Great Beyond. Is it possible they packed their own Supply of Western Mettle? As noted Southern California resident Jed Clampett might say, weeell doggie!
Wright nearly cycles. Benson nearly no-hits (can you break up a one-hitter?). Padres nearly whitewashed. We weren't even impaled by human pitchfork Joe Randa. What's not to like? I'm sure somebody will find something, but I'm hopping blissful right now.
Most of the National League East won, too, darn it all to heck, but if you like out-of-town scores, check out the other league. Red Sox won. A's won. Indians won. White Sox won. The White Sox were playing the Yankees who fell like a drunken idiot fan into a net hundreds of feet below. Too good a night to be bothered by our competitive logjam when we can instead revel in Boston commanding the A.L. East by 5-1/2 and some combination of the Athletics and Angels leading Cleveland in the Wild Card stakes by 3-1/2.
Am I missing somebody in that playoff picture? Never mind. We've got our own mission to accomplish.
Sorry about your 7,000th Game fiasco. To cheer you up, here are some other grand junctures*, most of them courtesy of the indispensable Ultimate Mets Database.
No. 1,000: Cubs 4 Mets 3, 5/12/68
No. 2,000: Cubs 9 Mets 6, 5/22/74
No. 3,000: Mets 3 Phillies 2, 6/27/80
No. 4,000: Mets 6 Cubs 5, 9/25/86
No. 5,000: Mets 6 Rockies 1, 4/7/93
No. 6,000: Mets 7 Expos 4, 7/22/99
No. 7,011: Mets 9 Padres 1, 8/10/05
Screw math. We make our own milestones around here.
*These are corrected after we realized neither one of us should be trusted around numbers. We apologize to the concepts of mathematics and fact-checking for our misuse of both.
Some of us (who are still unfortunately watching live baseball at 2:15 am) are not particularly pleased with that AL wildcard picture, thank you very much. But the AL East is mighty pleasin' indeed.
I got quite a giggle over the reaction of those two Padres fans (eww!) to Wright's HR. Priceless.
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We make our own milestones around here.
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You also mix things up like a Kitchenaid. Not to rain on this parade of mathematic and logical success, but those games 2000-6000 that you list apparently don't include postseason games. But “7011” does, and by 1000 they hadn't played any. You two are slowly but surely wrecking everything.
No, they do include post-season in the scheme of things. I know it's a dicey phrase to use around here, but I checked the math.
[Still hiding under bed.]