Brooms Are So Last Week (Bring A Shovel)

I take my 0-2 record to Shea Sunday afternoon for the finale versus the Braves. I know better than to scream SWEEP or go CHOP but I gotta tell ya: I know a little less better all the time.

The Braves is dead? Oh, let’s not get ahead of ourselves even if we’re nine ahead of them. Still, the Braves I know would have won one of these past two games, probably this one. They had Tim Hudson. We had Victor Zambrano and just barely.

Didja ever see something like Zambrano 1) shaking his pitching limb; 2) being tended to; 3) being left in; 4) striking out Andruw Jones; 5) sprinting off the field without the counsel of a catcher, a manager or a trainer? I thought I was watching Joe Hardy revert to Joe Boyd right before our very eyes.

Joe Hardy led the Senators to the pennant. Victor Zambrano had thrown 1-1/3 innings at those Damn Braves, so it’s not like he sold his soul, I don’t think. They say it was the elbow. To me it looked like a panic attack.

Are you there God? It’s me, Victor. I’m pitching and these people aren’t booing me. I don’t know what to do with myself. I have to get off this mound right now.

Good thing Willie Randolph was packing baseball’s only eight-man bullpen. He needed it. When Darren Oliver goes toe to toe with Tim Hudson, and Bartolome Fortunato (he wasn’t on the 600-day DL?), Chad Bradford, Pedro Feliciano and, yes, Jorge Julio pick up as much slack is as necessary, then the Mets are the right thing to be and it may finally not be the Braves’ year.

The Braves are now nine out of first, nine behind us. Heard today that the Braves were nine out at some point in 1993 and they stormed past the Giants. But that was another world. Most relevant to me was hearing that they were eight in back of the Phillies in 2001. These Braves aren’t those Braves and these Mets aren’t those Phillies, mostly because Willie Randolph, whatever you think of him, is no Larry Bowa.

Maybe the 2006 Phillies will give us trouble but I don’t expect the 2006 Mets to implode. Can’t imagine Willie will allow it. I love the confidence he has in his players, right down to the recalcitrantly reviled Jose Valentin (big hit Saturday) and the hypothetically hopeless Jorge Julio (a winner and a saver in consecutive games). I’m laughing hysterically at the FAN and the callers and host who are spitting on Julio’s accomplishments, that he can’t be trusted, that Lee Mazzilli — great manager — buried him, that he nearly blew it. Jorge Julio wasn’t supposed to be fit to tie Donne Wall’s shoes a few weeks ago. Even now he is, at best, the Mets’ fourth option out of the pen, yet when he was needed, he got the job done. That’s his own doing and probably some of Peterson’s doing but ultimately it’s Willie Randolph not giving up on a player who can help the team.

On a day when Wagner, Sanchez and Heilman were best not bothered, Jorge Julio was one of several who saved the day. Let a little of it get away? Sure. He had two runs to work with and gave back one. And that affected the final score and the standings how much? By not one little bit. I still haven’t seen the plus/minus column that tracks style points. Give me a shout when those count as tiebreakers.

The Mets are winning games against everybody now. I feared an old-fashioned letdown versus Washington and Pittsburgh. We went 3-1. I feared the Braves for all the reasons one fears the Braves. We’re 4-1 against them since last Friday. The Mets have won nine of eleven and until I stopped to figure it out, I swear I hadn’t noticed. Nine-of-elevens and such used to be events around here. Now it’s numbers. It’s what we do, just like not being out of a game because we’re behind in it or not giving up one of them because we’re forced to rely on dollops of one fourth starter and five second-line relievers to constitute one gosh darn effective parts-sum.

So Sunday, when I go to Shea in search of my first win of the season, I will do so in the face of John Smoltz — short rest, but when has that ever stopped a Brave? — and on the right arm of Jose Lima.

Jose Lima’s starting for the Mets? Against Smoltz?

I won’t tote a broom and it’s too early to grab a shovel, but I can promise you I’ll pack no fear.