Until they start weighting the games played in September heavier than they do the games played in April, tonight begins a very big series against the Braves. Don't let anyone tell you different.
It's not too early to take this three-game set very seriously. It's the Mets and the Braves and no Mets fan needs an explanation of all that can, should or might entail.
The Braves have been legitimately on my mind from the first weekend of the season when I noticed them losing in San Francisco. (Usually they're in my head a lot sooner, whether or not there was any point to them being there.) We were winning and it was hard to not want every possible positive milestone to fall our way. We've already got the best record we've ever had after eleven games. We've already won our first four series, a franchise first. We've already established that we lead every baseball team in the world.
Including the Braves by four games. And that's what I really wanted.
It's not too early to do what I was doing around 4 o'clock yesterday: flipping frantically between the Mets in the bottom of the eighth and the Braves in the bottom of the ninth.
Pitch to Delgado…
Home Depot commercial…
Pitch to Delgado…
Piggly Wiggly commercial…
Pitch to Delgado…
Goody's Headache Powder commercial…
Pitch to Delgado…
Droopy fannypackers filing out of Turner Field and vocal confirmation that — yes! — they were leaving after a Braves' loss…
Delgado circling the bases to massive cheers.
First reaction:
Delgado hit a home run and I missed his swing?
Damn!
Quickly revised take on the situation:
The runs count and the Mets are going to replenish their margin over Atlanta and they'll probably show a replay or ten.
ALL RIGHT!
I discovered the Braves lost and returned to find the Mets had just gained three valuable insurance runs during the seconds that I was away. This was the baseball equivalent of Mia Wallace rhetorically asking Vincent Vega at Jackrabbit Slim's, “Don't you love it when you go to the bathroom and you come back to find your food waiting for you?”
No fiction: The last time we held a four-game lead over Atlanta heading into a series with Atlanta was…actually, it's never happened. It has literally never happened. The Mets and Braves weren't in the same standings from 1969 through 1993. We weren't better than them between '66 (when they flew south from Milwaukee) and '68, and I know for certain we haven't edged them for more than a moment since '94. Hell, even when we swept them in the first NLCS, it was only by three games.
This is so unprecedented that I don't know if you call this kind of Mets margin a Big Mac, Le Big Mac or a Royale with Cheese. But I do know there is a whopper of an opportunity at hand.
I heard yesterday that a win tonight would give us the fastest five-game lead in baseball history. The '81 Athletics of Shooty Babitt — I've always loved that name — sprinted five up on the White Sox after 13 games. They were in first place when the strike came, good enough to stamp their ticket into that year's juryrigged playoffs. But they were only 1-1/2 ahead on June 11, meaning that if there hadn't been a strike in 1981, who knows what would have become of them?
Those A's are immaterial to us except to say that breaking their fastest-five-game-lead mark tonight won't mean a whole lot in the long term.
But it would be awfully nice.
As the constant reader knows, we don't endorse any looking ahead around here. That's just asking for problems. But I don't think it will screw with the cosmic batting order to spell out the four things that could happen between now and late Wednesday afternoon.
We could win all three and be seven games ahead of the Braves.
We could win two of three and be five games ahead of the Braves.
We could win one of three and be three games ahead of the Braves.
We could win none of three and be one game ahead of the Braves.
You can figure out how to rank these four scenarios in terms of idealness to the home team (no choice has been as clear-cut since “The Lady or the Tiger”), but suffice it to say that none of them irretrievably buries us and none of them permanently elevates us. These games are important because they are the games we play this week and, of course, because they are games we play against the team that has repeatedly won the title we seek. That team has proven itself quite capable of defending that title over and over and over. I've no reason to believe they have lost that capability.
Neither the world nor the season ends between now and late Wednesday afternoon no matter what happens. Both entities do, however, have a chance to become exponentially nicer places in which to watch Mets baseball.
That's big, even in April.
the braves are going to be the games we play for each of the next THREE weeks. tonight is the first of 9 games in 21 days against the braves. after that, we don't go head to head until the end of july.
so it's time to see if the mets can apply the foot on the neck the braves so richly deserve.
One game at a time and all that, but yes. This would be a good time to do what you say. Not worried about Turner Field because tonight's game isn't there, but what happens here doesn't have to stay here, know what I mean?
Roster update: Victor Diaz down, Pedro Feliciano up. With Beltran not in the lineup, that's a thinner than usual bench.
But another barrier to Jorge Julio.
Droopy fannypackers filing out of Turner Field
Braves have fans in the ballpark now? When did THAT start?
(overheard by a fly-on-a-yall:
Voice 1- Turner Field Box Office.
Voice 2- Hi, I'd like tickets to tomorrow's Braves game. When does the game start?
Voice 1, after surprised pause- When can allyall be here?)
They've always drawn, a la Toonces the Cat:
He can drive, just not very well.
Yes. Just get the win and enjoy nice evenings. Even when it seems too easy (not that this one was particularly easy at all), just get the win in these spring weather days. So many stupid wins not gotten over the years. No mercy in this dojo, but let it be more like just handling business. Great work by Duaner to end the inning.
~ posted post-win and plain glad to have it ~
I believe I speak for everybody when I say, Todd Pratt was hitting .345?!
Emphasis on the *was.* Pratt lowered his average to .333 with that
one strikeout. That's April stats for ya.
i realize my post may have included a dissonant note of bravado — and i share the general mets-fan antipathy to such sentiments. but the fact is, this is the time to get this done. braves are down, mets are up, and it's really important to take advantage. we've talked before how the mets seem to lack the killer instinct: the time to upgrade is now.
to that end, how sweet was delgado's blast last night? a perfect response to the previous half-inning, sort of like one hold 'em player topping another's bid with an all in.
in the same way, how great is it that the mets won the first game? how many times have they gone into a crucial series and NOT gotten the essential first win, and us placating ourselves that they didn't really NEED that win, that they could accomplish the goal of the moment by winning the next two?
this team is different. gloriously so.